


No Sincerer Love

by verdenal



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Chefs, Drinking, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Magical Realism, vague sci-fi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 01:24:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11956767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verdenal/pseuds/verdenal
Summary: (Chef AU) Keith and Shiro meet again, as Keith’s career is on the rise and Shiro is trying to get back on his feet after the failure of his first restaurant. It’s complicated, until it isn’t.





	No Sincerer Love

**Author's Note:**

> "There is no sincerer love than the love of food." - Shaw
> 
> Written for Sheith Big Bang 2k17!

**FIRST COURSE**   
_water guava, sliced thin_  
octopus, poached  
taro, grated fine  
lemon juice  
coconut water  
salt  
pepper 

_Moisten the grated taro with a 2:1 ratio of coconut water and lemon juice. Form taro into a ball and fry lightly. Wrap octopus and water guava around the taro ball. Serve on a bamboo skewer._

Keith is sharpening his knife and trying to tune out Lance’s chatter when Pidge finally shows up. Even though she’s the smallest person in the room, they all turn towards her when she walks through the door.

“Try,” she says, leaning on the word, “to act professional.” Then, before anyone can cut in to defend their conduct: “Allura’s bringing her new chef by. She wants him to get some of her favorite recipes from us.”

“That’s not fair,” Lance protests. “Now she’s never gonna come back here.”

“I don’t think that’s what this is,” Pidge says.

Lance doesn’t pay attention. “This is your fault,” he says instead, to Keith. “If you hadn’t broken up with her, this wouldn’t be happening.”

Keith sets his knife down very carefully. “First of all, it was mutual. Second of all, no.”

“This is the opposite of what Pidge meant by professional, guys,” Hunk says from the pastry station.

“Thank you,” Pidge says, “it is.”

Keith agrees with Lance more than he’s going to admit, though he doesn’t believe this has anything to do with him and Allura breaking up. He doesn’t want some mid-range cook with delusions of grandeur coming into their kitchen and fucking up their recipes because they don’t actually have any idea how much effort went into creating them. Keith is proud of their work and he has always been happy that they make the food Allura loves most on this planet. It isn’t fair for someone to take that and pretend like they could have done it themselves.

Maybe they won’t. Maybe Allura found someone that can work well with them. She has to have known that this would be an ego thing for everyone (and not just for Lance, for whom most things are ego things). 

“Do we know anything about this guy?” He asks.

Pidge shrugs. “Says he used to be in fine dining. Allura thinks he’s pretty private. Discreet.”

“That’s good,” Hunk says, and there’s a murmur of assent.

“Anyway,” Pidge tells them with a firm tone, “they’ll be here within the hour. Keep going with the prep work. I’ll walk him through the recipes myself. While I’m doing that, Keith, you’re in charge.”

Keith nods to let her know he heard, and then picks up his knife and goes back to work. It’s easy to forget everything that’s worrying him as he loses himself in the rhythm of prep. He doesn’t really like it when Pidge leaves. He’d known the responsibility when he accepted the promotion to sous-chef, but Pidge is so hands-on (a control freak if he’s being honest) that he hadn’t thought of it as being much of a leap. 

But sometimes she did stay out longer getting ingredients or meeting with the bank or any of the other out-of-kitchen tasks that she didn’t bring him along for, and then Keith was in charge. And he can do it—he can see when people make mistakes and tell them how to fix it, and he knows what Pidge wants out of each menu, what _they_ want out of each menu, because now he helps her with them. Just because he can, though, doesn’t mean that he particularly wants to be doing it.

What he wants is to cook. But a man is not an island, as they say, and he hates being told what to do more than he hates telling other people what to do. So he’ll suck it up and take charge when Allura and her new chef come by. He’s going to stew about it, though. Pidge loves that, because she’s a monster and she lives to torture him. She claims its about growing as a person, but Pidge, like all wunderkind, is stunted in some serious ways, so Keith doesn’t take everything she says to heart.

He loses himself in his work as time passes, pausing occasionally to taste sauces, or to try out Hunk’s little test pastries. This is why he’s genuinely startled when the kitchen door opens and Allura swans in. He can’t help but smile at the sight of her. And when she see him she smiles back and waves. Before he can say anything, though, Pidge is headed towards her.

“So,” Lance says, somehow managing to butt in from the other side of the room, “where’s your new man?”

Allura gives him a beautiful stinkeye. Lance swoons, and Keith loves her fiercely.

“He’s right behind me, I think.” She turns to look over her shoulder and beckons for someone to come closer. “I want him to meet all of you before Pidge whisks him away.”

“You make me sound so sinister, sometimes.”

“And?”

“Fair enough,” Pidge says with a shrug.

There’s an atmosphere of tension in the room that Keith can’t ever remember feeling there before.

“Everyone,” Allura says, “this is Shiro. Shiro, this is everyone.”

And there, standing next to Allura, is Takashi Shirogane.

Keith feels something stick in his throat. He didn’t think he’d ever see Shiro again. He thought maybe he’d died, or he’d left the planet. So he looks back down at his hands and hopes that there won’t be any actual introductions.

“Let me break down ‘everyone’ for you,” Pidge says to him, because Keith’s lot in life is apparently to suffer.

Keith doesn’t listen as she goes through the room; he knows Pidge well enough to know that she’s going to go from the bottom of the ladder to the top. So he has a couple of minutes to get himself together.

Once he hears Lance and Hunk’s names filter through the white noise in his brain, he straightens up. 

“This is Keith, my sous-chef,” Pidge says. Keith can tell by the way she pauses that there’s going to be more to this description, but before she can get to it, Shiro interrupts her, smiling. 

“We’ve met, actually.” He holds his hand out anyway and Keith takes it, registering the gleam of metal peeking out at Shiro’s cuff and the unexpected firmness of his palm. He hadn’t had the prosthetic last time Keith saw him. Maybe that’s why he cut off all communication.

“Oh,” Pidge says. “I didn’t know.”

“We used to work together,” Shiro continues. Keith wants to die.

“What?” Hunk and Lance chorus. 

“Ah, yeah,” Keith says, forcing himself to look directly at Shiro. “Back when Shiro was at Bushel. I was still in school, actually.”

“And still probably the most competent person in the kitchen.”

Keith fights down his blush. He can’t understand why Shiro is so relaxed right now. “Except for you, Boy Wonder.”

At last, he’s got Shiro on edge a little bit. He doesn’t really respond to Keith, just hums and then lets Pidge lead him to a distant corner of the room. The look she shoots at Keith over her shoulder promises an interrogation later, and the glare she sends Lance’s way is a warning not to start that interrogation without her.

Of course, she didn’t count on Hunk being the indiscreet one. As soon as Shiro and Pidge look like they’re out of earshot, Hunk hustles over to Keith’s station and whispers,

“Why didn’t you tell us you knew Takashi Shirogane?”

“Because I didn’t think it was that important. It wasn’t like I was keeping it a secret.”

“We didn’t even know you used to work at Bushel,” Lance adds.

“It’s on my resumé.”

“Uh, why would I look at your resumé?”

“Lance, focus,” Hunk hisses. “Who knows what other secrets he’s been keeping from us?”

“I haven’t been keeping secrets!”

“Aren’t you three supposed to be working?” Allura asks suddenly. She has this strange ability to move so silently that none of them can hear her, and she always uses it for maximum effect.

“This is important,” Lance tells her.

Hunk agrees: “In order to function ideally as a group we need to know things about each other. So, really, this is a team-building exercise.”

Allura raises an eyebrow, which does nothing to quell the grin spreading across her face. 

“I didn’t know Shiro and Keith knew each other either,” she says.

Keith just groans.

**SECOND COURSE**   
_oysters_

_coconut milk  
thai chilis_

_squid ink_  
leek  
onion  
garlic 

_lime_  
ginger  
olive oil 

_Steep chilis in coconut milk until desired spice level is reached. Combine leek, onion, and garlic in a separate pot. Once poached, add squid ink and water. Cook, then drain. Serve oysters atop a blend of both sauces, garnished with lime zest, ginger, a dash of olive oil, and sea salt._

The next time Keith sees Shiro, he’s at least prepared for it. Allura came to the restaurant for dinner, and brought Shiro and Coran with her. After some serious grousing about the whole situation (“Why come here if she’s got a personal chef who knows all our recipes?”) they fall back into their old routine. Allura will stay until the end of service, and then she’ll hover around like a ghost, not quite joining the family meal, but picking at the edges of the food and sweet-talking the bartender into making her a drink. Everyone on the staff is weak to Allura, and not just because she’s rich and beautiful. 

Once they’re done, Allura materializes by Keith’s side with a tell-tale grin. He doesn’t even try to fight her, just leans into her side and says, “You’re buying.”

“When am I ever not buying?”

“Don’t complain. You know how much Pidge pays me.”

“I heard that,” Pidge yells.

No one needs to ask where they’re going, because they’re going to the same place they always go: Rick’s, a divey bar in an otherwise rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, marked by a glowing sign that says ‘Lounge” and nothing else. 

The only difference in the routine is that now Shiro’s there too, hovering just off to the side. Keith remembers him as confident and friendly. He’s trying to think of something to say to put Shiro at east, but Allura gets there first.

“I know it’s weird to go out drinking with your boss,” she starts, but Shiro interrupts her.

“No, it’s okay. I got used to it when I was still working in kitchens.”

“Oh.” The wind is gone from Allura’s sails.

“So you’re coming with us?” Keith jumps in.

A startled smile spreads across Shiro’s face. “I guess so. It’s been a while, though. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep up.”

That earns a grin from Allura and an eye-roll from Keith. 

“Don’t pretend that you’re not gonna drink us all under the table and then somehow wake up with no hangover and cook breakfast.”

“First of all,” Shiro says, “I don’t get hangovers because I remember to hydrate.”

“I hydrate,” Keith says.

“No, dude, you do not,” Hunk says, catching up to the three of them as they head outside. “Every time we try to give you water you get pissed about it. For a little while we thought you had rabies.”

That finally draws out the laughter that Keith knows Shiro has been holding back.

“You never told me this,” Allura thrills. 

“Well, it was a couple of years back, right when you two started dating. We didn’t want to ruin Keith’s chances.”

“I did,” Lance says. “But Hunk and Pidge wouldn’t let me.”

“Sure,” Pidge agrees, elbowing Lance. “Not because you’re actually a big softy.”

Lance scowls but doesn’t disagree. 

Now that they’re out on the street they’re walking in a sort amorphous blob-like configuration. Shiro comes up close beside Keith and gives him a long, considering look. They deliberately pull back a bit from the others, not enough to really be noticeable but enough to get a modicum of privacy.

“Allura?” Shiro asks. 

“Yeah,” Keith says with a shrug. “It’s over, it was mutual, we’re still friends. It’s not weird that you work for her now.”

“It isn’t?”

“No. Do you think I’m gonna act like you’re in my territory or something?”

It’s Shiro’s turn to shrug. “People are weird about their exes, sometimes.”

Keith suddenly has the feeling that they’re not really talking about Allura. He’s never really been good with playing games like this, and Shiro knows it. “What’s really going on, Shiro?”

“Ah.”

“Ah?”

“I suppose I don’t know where to start. I wasn’t expecting to see you again.”

“Oh.” Keith feels like he’s been punched in the diaphragm. 

“Not that I didn’t want to,” Shiro rushes to say. “I guess I mean I wasn’t expecting to see you at that time, in that place.”

“It was mutual, trust me.”

“I could tell,” Shiro says. “You looked like...”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. You didn’t look happy.”

They are, Keith realizes, at a crossroads. He wants to hold a grudge against Shiro for the years of radio silence, but he isn’t angry anymore. He’s just hurt and confused.

“I mean, I hadn’t heard from you in years.”

“I know, and I’m sorry.”

“That’s it?”

“For now. It’s kind of a long story, and I don’t really want everyone listening in.”

Ahead of them, the rest of the group is approaching the bar. As soon as they’re inside, it’s going to be harder for Keith and Shiro to separate from the others. 

Outside of the door, Keith stops Shiro. “Fine. But you’d better tell me later.”

“I promise,” Shiro says, and he’s so painfully sincere that Keith has to let him go.

;

Once they’re all at the bar, everything falls back into routine, again. The usual table, the usual drinks (on Allura’s tab, as usual). The only change is Shiro’s presence, and despite his earlier awkwardness with Keith he blends in. Lance and Hunk ask him way too many questions about his career, and Pidge pretends like she’s not listening but Keith knows she loves industry gossip more than anyone. 

Allura is watching him, and Keith knows it’s because she wants to ask about Shiro. The only thing stopping her, he’s sure of it, is the fact that Shiro is sitting on his other side. He tries to communicate to Allura with his eyes that they can talk later. This has the effect of making her talk to him, instead.

“Later,” he whispers, as she leans in with her wolfish smile.

“You sure you’ll be around later?” she asks.

“Is that a threat?”

“No,” she laughs. “I assume you meant later tonight.”

“I did.”

“And you don’t happen to have anything else in mind for afterwards?”

Allura raises her eyebrows at Shiro, who is luckily too busy talking to Hunk to pay attention to what’s going on beside him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Keith deadpans.

“Oh, baby, you can’t fool me.”

“Don’t call me baby,” Keith gripes, but gets Allura’s point anyway. Shiro is pressed firmly up against him, from shoulder to knee. He’s a solid warmth that Keith has missed. He has to know what he’s doing. Shiro as Keith remembers him may have been friendly but he wasn’t flirtatious, generally. He couldn’t have changed that much, a treacherous little voice in Keith’s brain whispers. 

“So I’m right,” Allura says. “There’s something there.”

“There was,” Keith says. “A long time ago.”

“It seems like it’s still there,” she says, swirling her glass in front of her. “But that’s just me.”

“Your input is greatly appreciated.”

“I know,” she replies, cheeky, and kisses his temple before turning to Pidge and drawing her into conversation.

“Still friends with your ex, I see,” Shiro says from Keith’s other side. 

“Don’t be jealous,” Keith tells him primly. 

It was a gamble, but the look on Shiro’s face tells him he hit the nail on the head. Keith refrains from gloating, because he doesn’t want to draw any more attention than he already has, but he does press closer to Shiro.

“Glad you could finally rejoin the conversation,” Lance says to him. 

“Was just waiting for you to get a couple of drinks down so you’re less obnoxious.”

“Hey!”

“He’s obviously lying,” Pidge says, breaking away from her discussion with Allura. “Drinking only makes you more obnoxious.”

“I told you,” Lance says to Shiro, “that everyone bullies me.”

Keith raises his eyebrows but doesn’t bother arguing, since Shiro’s hand is resting on Keith’s left knee. It’s the prosthetic hand, but it’s still warm. It must be new tech, outworlder stuff. Just another question for him to ask later. 

He lets his attention drift away from the conversations going on around him, even as another round appears on the table. There’s no way anyone is actually talking about anything new. They see each other day in day out, except for Coran and Allura, who tend to come by the restaurant only two or three times a week. The only novelty today is Shiro, and Keith knows more about him than everyone else at the table combined, even if it feels like he barely knows anything at all.

Shiro still hasn’t moved his hand. In fact, it’s inched up to Keith’s thigh. 

Keith wonders whose place they’ll go back to. His, probably. Shiro is most likely staying in Allura’s building and it’s a little too weird to imagine him and Shiro walking back with Allura and Coran, and all four of them knowing exactly what was going on.

So, his place, then. Keith imagines Shiro in his little apartment, the way he’d fill up the kitchen with it’s low ceiling, how he’d look sitting cross-legged in front of Keith’s coffee table, spread out in Keith’s bed, the two of them trying to fit in Keith’s shower. It’s exactly like his fantasies circa several years ago. Everything is cyclic, apparently.

“Hey, man, what’s going on in there?” Hunk says, breaking through Keith’s daydream.

“Ah,” Keith searches for an appropriate answer. “I guess I’ve just had too much to drink.”

“She is making them strong tonight,” Hunk says.

“Are we calling it a night so soon?” Coran asks. 

“Some of us have been on our feet all day,” Pidge snipes. “And I don’t want to spend my entire day off nursing this hangover.”

“Big plans tomorrow?” Lance asks.

“Oh, you know it,” she replies. 

“So we are leaving, then?” Hunk asks.

“Why is everyone in a rush to leave me?” Lance wails.

“There are easier ways to try to get someone to come home with you, you know.”

“Even you?” Lance says as he turns to Hunk. “Even you would betray me like this?”

“You know it, buddy,” Hunk tells him with a laugh, and starts to lever Lance up out of his seat.

They all make their way towards the door in in waves: first Lance and Hunk, because otherwise Lance will probably try to stay, then Keith and Shiro, who are both trying to stay under the social radar, and the Pidge, Allura and Coran bringing up the rear. Keith is acutely aware of Allura’s gaze on his back. He rolls his shoulders back and focuses his attention back on Shiro, who is standing just too close to him for it to be an accident. 

Outside the bar they part ways in a flurry of hugs and mumbled goodbyes, and Keith starts making his way home, which fortuitously is in a completely different direction than everyone else’s. He turns back to look at Shiro, who hasn’t followed Allura and Coran. He also hasn’t really moved towards Keith, either.

“Are you coming or not?” Keith asks with a confidence he doesn’t feel.

“Always,” Shiro says. Something about the way Shiro says doesn’t fit with the situation. 

“Catch up, then.”

Shiro does, adjusting his stride to fall in time with Keith.

“I hope I’m not being presumptuous,” he says, when they’re about halfway back.

Keith frowns up at him. “I’m taking you home, how are you the one being presumptuous.” 

Shiro just gives him a look. It reminds Keith of when they used to work together; it’s the look that means Shiro thinks Keith isn’t fulfilling his potential. In the kitchen it tended to inspire him. Now, it irritates him.

“You think I couldn’t have stopped you from flirting with me if I had wanted to?”

“No.”

“Then why say that at all? Do you not want to be here?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why are we arguing about it. We never used to argue.”

“Are we arguing? I thought we were just kind of tipsy.”

“I can’t believe I missed you,” Keith says, “I completely forgot what a pain in the ass you can be.” 

As soon as the words leave his mouth he regrets them. Not because they aren’t true (they are very much so) but because now Shiro is looking at him with such a piercing tenderness that Keith wants to die. 

“Don’t,” he warns, before Shiro can open his mouth and make this situation even more humiliating. “We are not going to talk about this now. My apartment, my rules.”

Shiro still looks like he wants to say something heartwarming and cheesy, but nods anyway.

“And we are going to have a good time,”Keith adds, punctuating his words with jabs to Shiro’s bicep. He might be tipsier than he originally thought. 

“That’s an order?”

“You bet it is,” Keith says, and loops an arm around Shiro’s waist.

“I think I can handle that.”

By the time they get back to Keith’s (which isn’t actually that far, but alcohol and desire have a way of stretching time and space) the weird mood has lifted. Shiro is almost exactly the version of himself that Keith remembered from years ago: warm, close, safe. Keith misses him as fiercely as he did before Shiro reentered his life.

“Hope you don’t mind the mess,” he says as he unlocks the door.

“You, messy? You’d have to own things to make a mess with them.”

“I own things now,” Keith tells him. “Even got a bed frame.”

That makes Shiro laugh. Keith misses his laugh and in a moment of what must be drunken madness thinks that he would do anything to keep hearing Shiro laugh. Get a grip, he tells himself. Get a fucking grip on it.

Shiro kisses him as soon as the door is shut. He kisses like Keith remembers him kissing. It’s because there’s only so many permutations on the same act, Keith tries to remind himself while his critical thinking skills can still be engaged.

But Keith also remembers the noises that Shiro makes, and the ways the he likes to be touched. There are new muscles beneath Keith’s hands and the ghosting sensation of metal along his back as Shiro’s right hand moves restlessly against Keith’s skin, as though he isn’t sure if he can really touch Keith with it, but despite these changes Keith is delighted to realize that Shiro hasn’t changed as much as Keith had previously thought. At least, not in this part of his life. 

Keith walks Shiro backwards towards the bed (an actual bed, with a bed frame, just like he had said), until the backs of Shiro’s knees hit the mattress and he sinks down with a smirk.

“So,” he says, “how do you want to do this?”

Keith flushes. “Either way. I hadn’t gotten this far when I imagined it.”

“You imagined this?”

“You spent the last twenty minutes at the bar stroking my thigh, so yeah, I got some ideas.”

Shiro smiles with delight and pulls Keith down on top of him. 

; 

Keith wakes up feeling like a wad of cotton has been shoved into his skull in place of his brain. The sheets are twisted around his ankles and a blanket is lying haphazardly over his midsection. He knows that if he opens his eyes his suffering will only be compounded. He wonders if he can get Shiro to bring him water and Advil. Or make him breakfast.

He remembers the last time he and Shiro spent the night in the same bed. It had been right before Shiro left Bushel. Not the first time they had slept together, but the first time Keith had thought of it as something that could grow. Before, they had just been having fun during their few spare hours of overlapping free time, but that night Keith had seen something in the way that Shiro was looking at him.

It hadn’t worked out. Shiro had left less than a month later to open his own restaurant, and their time together had dwindled. Then Keith had left Bushel and started an actual full-time job, and they’d been farther away from each other than ever. It had just been easier to let it drop, rather than have to confront what was really going on. The blame was equally shared, though, Keith thinks. It wasn’t as though he had been going out of his way to make time for Shiro in his life either.

And then Shiro had dropped off the radar after his restaurant had folded. Keith tried not to take it personally, but he remember the way that Shiro had looked at him, and the way he had touched him, and the way they had talked about their futures. Maybe they had both been too afraid to say it, but Keith at least had been imagining Shiro in his. In some way, at least.

The memories aren’t doing much for his hangover, though.

He rolls over and realizes that there’s more room in the bed than he was expecting. 

_Oh_ , he thinks. _Okay_. 

This isn’t what he had thought would happen.

He forces himself to sit up and face the facts. If Shiro has left, then Keith is going to wallow in bed all day about it and then not talk about it to anyone, ever, for the rest of his life. But first, he might as well make himself comfortable. He props himself up with a groan and waits for his head to settle into place on his neck.

There’s a rustling sound on the edge of his awareness and his heart pricks up its ears. 

He opens his eyes and his sudden burst of faith is rewarded. Shiro is in his kitchen, wincing against the light and frying eggs.

“Thanks,” Keith says. His voice is low and rough.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Shiro says, “I could still burn these.”

“You? Burn eggs?”

“It could happen.”

“If it does, then I probably have bigger things to worry about.”

“Like what?”

“End of days, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Can you bring me the Advil? It’s in the bathroom.”

“You’ve been up for, like, forty-five seconds and you’re already ordering me around? Besides, if I go now the eggs’ll definitely burn.”

“Okay, first of all, it’s been like two minutes. Second of all, you can just bring it with the eggs, thanks.”

“Bossy,” Shiro retorts, but Keith knows he’s won.

He watches Shiro cook in silence. He’s beautiful like this, even though he isn’t doing anything fancy. Shiro moves around a kitchen like he was meant to be there. He’s said the same thing about Keith, but Keith thinks there’s a very important distinction between being comfortable cooking—which Keith is, comfortable with knives and ingredients and the real physical and mental process of cooking—and being comfortable in kitchens. Keith can’t settle into new places and new people the way that Shiro can. 

Shiro comes back to bed with eggs and the requested ibuprofen. 

Shiro has also made toast and sliced one of the tomatoes Keith had lying around. They eat in a companionable silence until Keith, who is apparently a glutton for this very specific type of punishment, asks, “Shouldn’t you be back at Allura’s by now?”

“That eager to get rid of me?”

“Just trying to help you keep your job.”

Shiro twists his mouth in an approximation of a smile. “I think I’ll be fine. I woke up to this text from her.”

Keith reads it and rolls his eyes. “She likes to meddle too much.”

“It’s,” Shiro pauses, “I guess nice is the right word. Although, I don’t know her that well.”

“It’s certainly something,” Keith grumbles. “You’ll get used to her, though.”

By the time they’re done eating and making idle chitchat, Keith’s hangover has been reined in, so he brings the dishes to the kitchen. He thinks about washing them right then, but decides against it. He can feel Shiro’s eyes on him. It’s not an unpleasant feeling. 

Shiro pads up behind him, clearly trying to be stealthy but failing, as he has every single time he’s ever tried to sneak up on Keith. He kisses the back of Keith’s neck once, casually, and then pulls back.

“I probably should get going. Don’t wanna take up your entire day off.”

Keith bites back his instinctive response, which is to tell Shiro that he wants him to take up all of Keith’s days off. “I’ll see you around, then.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so.”

Keith doesn’t watch him leave. As the door clicks shut, he realizes they didn’t even exchange numbers.

**THIRD COURSE**   
_carrot_  
vegetable stock  
potato  
onion  
milk  
ginger  
nutmeg  
garlic  
pepper 

_carrot_  
orange  
radish  
dandelion 

_cumin_  
lime juice  
lemon juice  
chili flakes  
salt  
oil 

_Add onion, carrot and potato and garlic to boiling stock. Cook until tender. Blend soup until smooth and add milk, ginger, nutmeg and pepper. Serve with wilted dandelion greens, radishes, roasted carrots and orange pieces dressed in cumin vinaigrette on the side._

Two weeks later, Keith is painstakingly de-boning a fish when Hunk comes up beside him and nearly causes him to ruin the whole filet.

“So, I haven’t seen Shiro around here lately.”

“Well, he doesn’t work here, so that makes sense.” Keith doesn’t look up from his work. There are still pin bones left, he knows. It’s just menu testing, but that doesn’t mean that he can give Pidge anything less than a perfect plate of food. 

Hunk’s tone changes. “I’m not trying to harass you, you know. I’m just asking what’s going on.”

Keith can never stay irritated at Hunk for long. He’s always so sincere and so caring, even if he sometimes decides to express that in the most irritating way possible.

“He’s been busy. I’ve been busy.”

“Is it weird because of Allura?”

“Why does everyone think that?” Keith asks. He puts down his tweezers.

“I mean, it’s a pretty logical question.”

“It’s not weird. She told me to go for it. When I said we were still friends, I meant it.”

Hunk holds up his hands. “Okay, okay. I’ll trust you on that one. Still, you guys seemed really into each other. You and Shiro, I mean.”

“Can we not talk about this when I’m in the middle of something?”

“Sorry, dude, you’re almost definitely not my boss, so.”

This is probably true. Hunk runs pastry like his own little kingdom, and answers only to Pidge, and only sometimes.

“Plus,” Hunk says, “you’re in a way better mood when you’re working on something.”

“And when I’m being interrupted?”

“Nah, I can tell you’re not mad. You’re embarrassed and you don’t wanna talk about it, but you’re not mad at me.”

“Are you some sort of evil wizard?”

“Yeah, probably. It’s why I’m so good at baking.”

Keith also suspects that this is true. Baking has never been his forte, because he prefers to do things by instinct, and that doesn’t exactly fly in pastry.

“So, tell me,” Hunk says, “before I’m forced to put a curse on you.”

“I don’t know,” Keith answers. He picks the tweezers back up and trains his gaze on the filet again. Having these conversations is easier if he doesn’t have to make eye contact and see Hunk’s “empathy face.”

“We didn’t even get each others’ numbers. I don’t know why I didn’t ask for it.”

“You don’t have it from when you used to work together?”

“I mean, I did, but that was like two phones ago. Plus, Shiro changed his number after Moon and Gold failed. He went off the grid basically. I never heard from him.”

“Oh.”

“You knew, right? I mean, I feel like everyone knew.”

“I guess. I didn’t really think too much about it. I wasn’t following industry news that carefully back then.”

“Fair enough.” Keith shrugs as he deposits the last pin bone in a dish. “I assume he doesn’t want to talk about it, so don’t bring it up. That means Lance, too. I assume he doesn’t know since he hasn’t tried to bring it up yet.”

“He’s not as oblivious as you seem to think he is.”

Keith turns and levels a gaze at Hunk that he knows is unnerving. Hunk doesn’t back down, but he does abandon that avenue of conversation.

He moves to sear off the fish before he poaches it. “And yes, to answer the question you actually want to ask me. We did sleep together back when we were both at Bushel. It was casual, though.”

“Yeah, everything seems pretty casual to me.”

Keith focuses on the hissing sound of the fish and the oil in the pan, and not on the sarcasm dripping from Hunk’s voice. Once he’s got a good sear he moves the filet into a heated butter bath in the oven, infused with herbs. It’s the herbs they aren’t yet sure of; this time Keith has added a bright pop of mint that he hopes brings about the effect Pidge wants. For someone who claims to have no time for or interest in the non-culinary arts, she can be frustratingly poetic in her descriptions. 

“Do you, ah, do you want his number?” Hunk asks.

“Why do you have his number?” Keith blurts. 

Hunk graciously doesn’t say anything about his tone. “For pastry advice, obviously.”

“Right, sorry.” 

Hunk wordlessly puts the number in Keith’s phone.

The fish is going to be done soon. Keith nods at Hunk in thanks and then turns to the oven. As dismissals go, it’s not the rudest Keith has ever been.

Hunk heads back to his station, presumably already decided which tidbits about Keith’s personal life he’s going to share with everyone else. Not, Keith admits to himself, that it’s possible to keep anything secret around here for long. Most things.

The scent from the oven blankets his senses. Butter, first, the constant rich aroma of it that coats the oven and slowly spreads to the rest of Keith’s station; then the fish itself, and the delicate threads of the herbs. It makes Keith’s ears prick in delight. He plates it even though the rest of the dish is still up in the air, carefully constructs the absence of sauce and garnish around the fish. Pidge will appreciate it.

Pidge materializes next to him as though summoned. She leans over the plate, sniffs, and then looks up at Keith. 

“It smells interesting, at least. Looks nice, too. You listened to me about the absence of things.”

“Well, that’s two senses I’ve appeased, at least.”

“No small feat,” Pidge reminds him. 

“Just taste it,” he tells her. “Put me out of my misery.”

“I live to torture you.”

“I know.” 

The fish flakes off onto her fork perfectly. Her face, though, as she lets the piece sit in her mouth, says that something isn’t right.

“Mint?”

“It was worth a shot.”

“I’m not,” she pauses, swallows. “I’m not against it. I just don’t understand it fully.”

“Well, I haven’t actually tasted it yet myself. Let me try.”

To Keith, it tastes right. Almost. Seasoning could be delicately adjusted. The absence of a true sauce. But he doesn’t think that Pidge is having the same experience.

“I think,” she says to him, “that this is another instance of your palate versus mine.” 

“Yours and everyone else’s,” Keith says. 

Pidge shrugs. “Something’s wired differently for you. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s why we work together on this stuff.”

“Allura likes my stuff.”

“I mean, you were also banging, so.”

“Even before that.”

“Okay, well, she is also a literal alien.”

Keith doesn’t respond to that. He just keeps eating the fish.

“Look,” Pidge says, getting herself into his eyeline, “don’t get upset about it. This is gonna take a while to put together. To be honest, I don’t totally know what I’m looking for myself.”

“Not mint.”

She laughs. “Yeah, not mint, I guess.”

Keith can’t help but smile back. 

“Anyway, don’t let it get into your head. You always cook better when you’re not in a bad mood. Maybe that’s what I don’t like about this. Well, that and the mint.”

“I like to think I’m good enough that that doesn’t matter. And I’m not in a bad mood.”

Pidge rolls her eyes. “Technically, yeah. But there’s a certain something, when you’re in a good mood. Elevates the whole plate.”

“Whatever you say.”

Pidge returns to her own station, where she’s mostly been nibbling at things and muttering to herself. Keith takes this as a sign that menu testing is over for the day, and it’s time for him to move on to prep. Lance will be here soon, and he wants to clear away the signs of his failure before then. 

Remembering Lance makes him think of Hunk, which reminds him that Shiro’s number is now in his phone. He shouldn’t, really, be doing this, but he furtively texts Shiro anyway.

**hey its keith, hope its ok hunk gave me your #**

He puts his phone away and refuses to look at it for the rest of the day.

;

Keith doesn’t check for a reply from Shiro until he’s finally made it home. He strips down to his boxers and flops onto his bed. Only the blinking light on his phone reminds him about Shiro. And, indeed, he’s replied.

**Of course it’s okay! I don’t know why I didn’t give it to you before.. guess I forgot you didn’t already have it.**

Keith starts to type out a reply, but falls asleep halfway through.

He wakes up too early to the screeching of his alarm and another text from Shiro.

**I didn’t mean to upset you. I hope that’s obvious. We could get lunch sometime this week, maybe. Talk about it. As friends.**

**As friends?** Keith sends back. He has to get ready to go back to work, so he can’t stare at his phone waiting for Shiro to reply. Not, of course, that he would do something like that.

**If we’re still friends.** Shiro’s reply reads. **Just let me know when you’re free.**

**Pidge has been making me come in early all week to do menu testing. I can get her to give me a couple of hours tomorrow. If that works.** Keith sends the text on his way out of the door, and prepares to grovel for a real lunch break.

;

Pidge gives in too easily, which means there’s some sort of bet going around about him and Shiro. But gift horses, and all. He’ll wait until later to get it out of someone. Or to make a deal with Pidge to split the pot. 

Still, when she agrees to let him leave to see Shiro tomorrow, something in his heart thrills at it. He sends Shiro a sneaky text—a practice that he hopes doesn’t evolve into habit—and gets back to work. When he brings the fish to Pidge again, this time without the mint but with tarragon as the leading herb, she smiles at him with a strange combination of smugness and genuine delight.

“I told you your food is always better when you’re in a good mood.”

; 

He lets Shiro take him to a fucking vegan place, because apparently his entire brain is controlled by an attraction he felt literally years ago. It’s embarrassing and Keith wants to die. He’s not opposed to vegan cooking, but he didn’t expect Shiro to pick it. He’d been so good with meat, back when Keith had known him. Maybe it’s a sex thing—meat is too carnal, or something. Keith can believe that Shiro would get hung up on something like that.

They don’t say much as they order, just small talk about the weather, and Allura’s particular tastes.

Once the food arrives Shiro seems to relax a bit. Maybe he needs something to do with his hands, or his mouth. Keith immediately feels like a pervert for the ensuing train of thought.

So, instead of looking at Shiro, Keith focuses on his food: a red pepper stuffed with spinach, onions, quinoa, some sort of meat substitute that Shiro was enthusiastic about. It smells good. Good and grounding.

It tastes just as good, and his face must light up, because Shiro grins at him and says, “I told you this place was good.”

“I trust your opinion on food. I always have.”

Shiro clearly doesn’t know what to do with that. He slurps at his soup and Keith lets him. It’s easy to slip back into old patterns with Shiro. He can sit in silence if he wants (and he does, often) and Shiro will tolerate it far past the point when anyone else would. But Shiro is clearly struggling and Keith—Keith can’t bear to see it, even in something as stupid as this.

“I’m not mad at you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Shiro startles. “I mean, I had hoped you wouldn’t be. I know this is kind of weird.”

“Which part?”

“Me, coming back. Us, hooking up. This lunch.”

“The lunch is fine. You’re making it weird when it doesn’t need to be.”

“Ok, ok. Then, I guess maybe we should talk like normal people. Tell me what you’ve been up to since I last saw you.”

Keith gives him a wry grin. “Cooking. You’ve even been to the restaurant, remember?”

“So you never got rid of that attitude, is what you’re telling me.”

“You love it,” Keith says without thinking. “But I suppose some rough edges got sanded down.”

“You have changed,” Shiro agrees. 

“I feel like I got it all worked out of me, to tell the truth.”

“Pidge is that much of a taskmaster?”

“No one believes me because she’s so tiny and innocent-looking.”

“Tell me about it.”

So Keith does, in great detail. And even though Shiro refuses to say anything more about those gap years than Keith already knows, it doesn’t matter. It feels like old times, and underneath it all Keith can feel his heart beating _I like you, I like you._

**FOURTH COURSE**   
_halibut_  
barley, toasted  
brown rice green tea  
mushrooms  
turnips  
fennel seeds  
leeks 

_Poach halibut and season with fennel seeds. Serve on toasted barley with sauteed mushrooms and leeks. Pour brown rice tea over, as a sauce._

Two months later the new menu is ready to be rolled out. Allura and Coran come by on the first night, like they do for every new menu. They take the latest possible reservation so that they can drift back to the kitchen once service is done. Everyone had been on edge the first time it happened, even people who didn’t know that Allura was their mystery financial backer. For years, Keith didn’t know why she’d chosen to support a restaurant that billed itself as “on the final frontier of flavor.” 

(Not, of course, that they used that phrase on any of the marketing, but Keith has heard it come out of Pidge’s mouth on multiple occasions.)

Allura has the money to do whatever she wants, of course, since she is a literal alien princess. Or something like a princess; Keith still doesn’t have a firm grasp on the structure of the Altean government. Princess is close enough. He used to call her that, just to get her riled up, back when they had been together. Actually, he still does call her princess, but it means something different now. A reminder, rather than a taunt. Coran calls her princess too, but he’s also somehow her employee, or her courtier, or something. Both of them are completely oblivious to everyone’s attempts to figure out what exactly it is Coran does for Allura. Lance thinks that he’s some sort of criminal enforcer, despite there being no evidence that Allura is involved in anything illegal. Everyone else fondly tolerates this theory, even Coran and Allura, which Keith accepts as further proof that it’s not true.

Besides, if Allura was really some sort of alien mafia leader, she would probably want to use the restaurant as some sort of front for shadier business. Instead, she uses it as a source of amusement (and free food). Still, every single time Allura and Coran dine at the restaurant, the entire kitchen staff decreases their productivity by gossiping about them. 

Tonight, Shiro’s here too, which at least gives them something new to talk about. Even Pidge gets sucked into it. Every time she fires an order and there’s something new to tell (one of the servers overheard something, or saw a flicker of a facial expression, or or or) she whispers it down the line and soon the whole room is aware of it. 

The consensus, by the end of service, is that: a) Shiro is definitely more than just Allura’s personal chef, although whether he’s b) her secret lover or c) another member of this supposed crime ring is still a toss-up. Keith’s opinion, which is that Allura is just kind of weird and Shiro is just kind of a pushover, is ignored. 

After Pidge has sent everyone else home, Coran materializes with a plate full of drinks, as he always does after a new menu hits. It seems like a kind gesture, but Keith knows for a fact that he usually pilfers the alcohol from the restaurant’s bar. 

Allura follows close behind him, and Shiro behind her. She takes a drink and once everyone has followed suit, proposes a toast: “To all of you, for another beautiful success!”

There’s a horrible flavor to the cocktail, which means that this time Coran was so happy with the food that he used Altean liquor (nunvil, Keith remembers Allura telling him). Everyone else tastes it at the same time, too, and there is a chorus of chokes. No one spits it out, but they’re all extremely unhappy about it.

“It’s a not a reward!” Lance tells Coran. “I know you two like it, but we humans don’t.”

Coran sniffs. “You should learn to broaden your palate, Lance. Your cooking can only benefit from it.”

Lance scowls but is clearly too tired to put up much of a fight. Instead he pounds back the rest of the drink—the only way for a human to tolerate nunvil. 

Keith scoots closer to Pidge and Allura. They’re going dish by dish through the seven-course tasting menu (Pidge’s pride and joy). When she sees him approaching, Pidge reels him in with a grip on his wrist. “I can’t take all the credit,” she’s saying, “Keith really made his mark on this one.”

“I can tell,” Allura says, turning her luminous smile on Keith. “We have similar tastes, I think.”

Keith shrugs. “Maybe I just got used to cooking for you.”

Allura raises an eyebrow but lets the subject drop. “Even if it was all due to my influence, you did a wonderful job.”

“He did,” Pidge agrees. Keith blushes furiously.

“You can’t talk about me like I’m your son! You’re not even older than me.”

“No,” Pidge agrees, “but I am your kitchen elder.”

“Also not true.”

“Fine,” she says with a huff. “I’m your boss and I can say I’m proud of you if I want.”

Allura laughs. “He’s so resistant to professional praise.”

“So humble.”

“If you guys are just gonna harass me, I’ll go home,” Keith threatens.

“We’re not harassing you,” Allura informs him.

“Who’s being harassed?” Shiro asks, breaking from his conversation with Hunk and ambling over to Keith’s side. “Allura,” he says, “I have no idea how you tolerate that nunvil stuff.”

“An acquired taste,” she tells him with a smirk.

“I’m being harassed,” Keith says. 

“He’s not,” Pidge says without any pause. “We’re congratulating him on his professional growth.”

Shiro nods, over-solemn. “There’s nothing worse.”

Keith sighs. “Fine, gang up on me all you want. But I _am_ going home.”

All three look at him with concern. 

“I’m not really upset,” he says. It might be true. “But I’m exhausted, and I have to be back in tomorrow, so I’d like to at least get a little sleep, since I know you,” he points at Pidge, “are going to want to go over everything again to make sure tonight wasn’t a fluke.” 

“Guilty as charged,” Pidge admits. “Go on then, try to get home before the nunvil wipes you out.”

“That’s just you,” he tells her, “because you’re half-sized.”

Pidge glowers but Keith backs out of her range. Coincidentally, this brings him back up against Shiro. In response, Shiro places a warm steady (flesh, Keith notes, even though he’s right-handed) hand on Keith’s shoulder. 

“Want some company?”

Allura looks smug. Keith tries to communicate with her telepathically (even though she’s told him multiple times that it’s not possible) to tell her that she didn’t engineer this situation. As always, there’s no indication that she has any idea what he’s doing. Still, it feels nice to try.

“Sure,” he tells Shiro, leaning into his touch. “Do you have a subway pass?”

“Obviously?”

“Well, you’re living in luxury now. Who knows how you get around.”

“Hovercar, obviously.”

“Right, right.”

“Okay, jokesters, see you later,” Pidge says. “Well, Keith, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Shiro is a comforting presence at Keith’s back all the way out. Once they’re out on the street he comes up beside Keith instead. Keith wonders if he could hold Shiro’s hand, what Shiro would say if he did. Would he care if Keith held his metal hand? He hadn’t seemed to mind when they slept together, but they’d been drunk then. Is he standing to Keith’s left because he doesn’t think Keith will touch his metal hand?

Is Keith the most pathetic person alive?

Shiro is looking at him with concern, which is the last thing Keith wants. “I’m just tired,” he tells Shiro to forestall any actual questions.

“I’m sure. I remember those nights.”

“Do you miss them?” Keith asks.

Shiro’s answer is lost in the rush of noise that comes from entering the subway station. Keith doesn’t ask again, because Shiro’s expression is tense and clouded now.

They stand in silence on the train even though there are open seats this late at night. People move around them like whispers, but Keith is too focused on not falling asleep on his feet to pay much attention.

“This is my stop,” he says, finally. “It’s not far from here, if you just want to let me go.”

Shiro gives him a weird look. “I said I’d walk you home. I meant it.”

“I’m not gonna be good for much when we get back, just to warn you.”

“I didn’t think you would be. You really think that’s what’s going on?”

“No,” Keith admits. 

“Good,” Shiro says, and steers him through the station with a hand on the small of his back. It’s his left hand again.

He doesn’t break contact once they’re out in the street, and Keith can feel the warmth radiate up his spine and suffuse across his chest. 

Then they get to Keith’s building, and Keith decides to ruin his own life. 

“Do you not want me to touch your metal hand?”

There’s no excuse for it. Not even exhaustion. But Keith wants to know, and he wants to get it out of the way now, and something about being around Shiro brings him back to who he was back when they first met: sharp edges and a calculated indifference to everything around him. 

Shiro blinks at him, and his left hand moves away from Keith’s back. He flexes his right, and Keith’s eyes are drawn to the movement.

“I don’t...not want you to,” Shiro offers.

“Sorry, that was rude. I don’t mind it.”

“It’s fine. I’m just not used to it yet, that’s all. I didn’t get it until recently.”

“Oh.” Keith wants to ask. He knows that Shiro knows he wants to ask. He should probably keep his mouth shut. Instead, he reaches out and grabs Shiro’s right wrist, which is covered by his shirt sleeve.

“We should go out again, sometime. Not just as friends.”

“You’re exhausted.”

“Are you shooting me down?”

“No,” Shiro says with a soft chuckle, “I’m not. But you should go to bed. We can set something up later.”

“Okay,” Keith agrees. “Then, uh. Good night. Thanks for walking me home.”

“Any time.” Shiro pauses with his mouth parted, as though there’s something else he wants to say, but then he changes his mind. Instead he leans forward into Keith’s space and presses a soft kiss to his cheek.

Keith can feel himself blushing as Shiro pulls away and wishes him a good night. He walks into his building with his hand still against his cheek. A phantom sensation has settled there, and it makes Keith’s entire face tingle. He falls asleep still feeling it.

;

He wakes up still tired. His feet hurt and his entire existence feels greasy. But, he’s up before his alarm somehow, which means that he can take his time showering and making breakfast and pretending like he works a normal amount of hours. The downside to this, however, is that he actually has time to be alone with his thoughts. This is normally not a problem; Keith functions just fine when left in his own head. If anything, that’s where he’s at his best, alone to sort through things in his own way and at his own speed.

Unfortunately, today he’s confronted with the twin realizations that last night that: a) Pidge said that she was proud of him, and b) that he harassed Shiro about his arm. He feels scummy about the latter and just generally strange and squirmy about the former. Keith breathes in the steam from the shower like that will cleanse his insides, too. Shiro, Shiro didn’t get angry. He can make it up to Shiro. They’ll go out and Keith will apologize for real and then they’ll let the subject drop for as long as Shiro wants it to be dropped.

Keith wants to know, though. So badly. It’s so unfair, he thinks, that Shiro went away and came back and doesn’t want to tell Keith anything about it. They had had a real connection back at Bushel. Keith believed that then, somewhere deep down, and he believes it now even more. Shiro wants to pretend like they’re the same people from back then, and Keith feels cheated. 

Inhale steam. Exhale. He’s not the same person he was. He can wait Shiro out. 

When he gets out of the shower his phone is blinking. He checks the time but deliberately ignores all of his notifications and heads to the kitchen. Pancakes, Keith thinks. He has some berries from last weekend’s farmers market and some whipping cream. Mascarpone, too, a little voice in his head that sounds like Pidge reminds him. And pepper, says that little Allura. 

The pepper turns out to be exactly what he wants: a bite on top of the sweetness. Weird, with the berries, maybe, but Allura would definitely like it. He sends her a picture of them. 

**Is that a promise?** She writes back.

**Bossy.** He replies. **Just tell me when.**

Allura had said she was proud of him, too. That feels almost as weird as Pidge saying it, but Allura loves him and it seems like something you say about the people that you love. He’s been proud of her too, before. They’ve helped each other grow as people, or whatever. Some cheesy shit like that. 

It’s different when it’s Pidge, though. She’s proud of him in some sort of professional capacity, and Keith has never been good at handling that. Even with Shiro. 

There’s a message from her, too, that Keith barely scans to confirm that she isn’t miraculously giving him the day off. She isn’t, obviously. They’re going to go over the new menu—again—step by step before prep starts. If he’s combative enough about little things Pidge won’t say anything else to him about professional development. Or he could distract her by wondering if and when food critics would show up for the new menu; it had been big news on the scene, since Pidge had deliberately gotten everyone (or everyone who cared about fine dining in the area) fired up about the new menu, which was meant to represent another step towards the blending of earthly and outworlder palates. 

If it was really about that, Keith thinks sometimes, she’d give in to him more often. Not that Pidge actually knows, but she’s commented before that his palate lines up better with Allura’s than hers does. On the other hand, ninety percent of their patrons aren’t outworlders, so Pidge is, as always, making the shrewd business decision. Maybe he should tell her, and see how she reacts. Maybe she’ll give him a raise or something. He could bill her as a consultant or something. What he would do with the extra cash, he doesn’t really know. Keith isn’t given to a lot of luxuries in his life (or “normal things people like because it makes their lives better” as Lance would put it). He won’t tell her unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

By the time he gets to the restaurant his head has cleared. Pidge is already waiting for him, but she looks faintly pleased with herself. She often does; Keith likes that about her, that she knows when she’s done something well or she’s good at something and she doesn’t care what other people think about it.

“I think the _Standard_ is going to be sending someone this week,” she tells him as they move towards his station. “So I’ll keep an eye out for that.”

“Kristof?”

“I don’t know. I heard he was on vacation.”

“They have someone to replace him?”

“He’s getting old, I’m sure he has a protégé out there.”

Keith shrugs in agreement. “So, what worked last night? What didn’t? I’m sure you and Allura talked about it more after I left.”

“We did,” Pidge says. “I don’t think we need to make any major changes.”

“Thank god.” 

“I was thinking about the sauce on the fourth course,” Pidge says, and Keith can feel his soul leave his body. This is easily his least favorite topic. Pidge has been tying herself in knots for months thinking about whether servers should pour from the left or the right, or if they should pour the sauce at all, and what the vessels should look like, and how unearthly they should be. Frankly, it doesn’t make any sense at all to Keith. 

He lets her talk herself through it again. She doesn’t need his input, just the impression that there’s someone listening to her.

“So, Pidge says when she’s wound down, “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Keith knows that tone. “No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

“Yeah, but I know you well enough to know that if you’re asking me in private that it’s something I’m not gonna like.”

“Well, tough luck. I’m your boss, so you have to listen to me.”

“I don’t have to like it, though.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Fine.”

Keith folds his arms and leans back against the counter. Pidge look nervously from side to side—confirming Keith’s suspicions that she’s going to ask him to do something he hates—and then starts her pitch.

“So Allura and I were talking last night about raising the restaurant’s profile.”

“No.”

“Keith,” Pidge snaps. 

He narrows his eyes but keeps his mouth shut.

“I’m just gonna go ahead and go for it, since you’re obviously not in the mood to hear any sort of explanation.”

Keith huffs but doesn’t say anything. 

“How would you feel about entering a cooking competition?”

There it is.

“I assume you mean a televised one.” It isn’t even really a question; if it was just some local thing, a matter of humorous professional rivalry, he’d do it with no questions asked. He isn’t wildly competitive, not like Lance is, but once he’s in, he’s in. And he rarely loses.

“I know you hate it.”

“I don’t understand it,” he snaps. “I don’t know why we need more publicity.”

“Local foodies love us, outworlders coming to this city, but we can’t stay afloat on just that market. ”

“And Allura doesn’t want to lose too much money on us.”

“This could be good for you, too, you know. To get your name out there.”

“I don’t want my name out there!” Keith raises his voice. 

“You want to be my sous chef forever?”

“I don’t mind it,” Keith admits. Pidge is leaning into his space now, never one to back down from a fight.

Pidge sighs. “Okay. This obviously isn’t going to get resolved right now.”

“It could be, if you accepted my answer. Why don’t you just ask Lance? He’d probably love to do it.”

“He would,” Pidge agrees, “but I didn’t ask him. Just think about it, please.”

Keith stews about it instead. He lets his simmering anger push him through the rest of the day, and Pidge stays out of his way. Hunk and Lance and the rest of the staff follow her lead, but Keith is aware of the glances they shoot his way when they think he’s not paying attention. He’s reminded of years ago, when he’d first started cooking and didn’t know how to be in a kitchen with anyone else. He doesn’t precisely miss those days, but it is nice to not have to talk to anyone more than he has to in order to get his job done.

Pidge lets him leave without any comment. The walk back to his apartment doesn’t make him any less tormented about the whole situation. He needs a distraction.

His phone blinks with a text. Shiro.

**I hadn’t heard from you so I thought I’d text first. Still want to go out some time?**

Keith grins.

**You know it. Actually, what are you doing right now?**

Shiro responds immediately.

**Going out with you apparently. Anywhere in mind?**

**There’s a pub-type place near Allura’s, if that sounds alright. I’ll send you the address.**

**See you there!**

;

Shiro is waiting for Keith at the pub, already posted up at the bar. He looks sort of tired—he must be on a more normal schedule—but when he sees Keith his whole face lights up. 

Keith can feel a smile stretch across his face in response, despite his mood. He slides into the seat next to Shiro and nods at the bartender. 

“Usual?” She asks.

“Yeah.”

“Come here often?” Shiro asks once she’s headed off to get Keith’s beer. 

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

Shiro gives him a dimpled grin in response. “I don’t, actually. A friend recommended it to me.”

“Just a friend?”

“Well,” Shiro says. He looks almost coy. Keith realizes he’s flirting. It’s charming, that Shiro thinks he needs to flirt with Keith at all. Keith likes it.

“Oh? More than a friend?” He leans into Shiro’s space, ducks his head and looks up through his eyelashes.

Shiro blushes, eyes wide. “Maybe more?’

He’s so fucking sweet. Keith barely notices when a beer materializes at his elbow. Nadine is a friend, though; she won’t interrupt Keith in this very important moment. 

“Maybe,” Shiro agrees. Then abruptly he leans back, away from Keith, who’d pulled him into his orbit.  
“But I think your beer is here.”

Keith rolls his eyes and backs away. “Thanks for coming out tonight with me.”

“Any time,” Shiro says, “I mean it.”

They lapse into silence as they sip their beer.

“I’m sorry,” Keith says suddenly. “For last night. About your arm. I was out of line.”

“It’s ok,” Shiro tells him. “I’m just not used to it yet. No one from before knows about it, except you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. It just seems a weird thing to bring up in conversation. Like, by the way, I have a prosthetic arm now.”

“Is it outworlder tech?” Keith asks, because he’s apparently incapable of keeping his mouth shut.

“Might be. You know how quiet people want to keep stuff like that.”

Keith nods. “Everyone gets too freaked out by outworlders. Even ones like Allura, although they want to pretend they don’t, because she’s rich and beautiful.”

“It isn’t fair,” Shiro agrees. Keith wants to press him about how he got the new arm, but Shiro seems loose and relaxed despite the topic, and Keith doesn’t want to ruin the mood. He just scoots his stool closer to Shiro’s and leans into his warmth. Shiro shift closer, too.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“What makes you think something’s going on?”

“You’re all over the place. It’s been a while, but I still know you.”

Keith doesn’t know how to respond to that. On the one hand, it sends a warmth curling down along his bones; on the other, he wants to rip his own skin off and tell Shiro he’s unknowable.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s something, if you wanted to see me tonight.”

“Maybe I just wanted to spend time with you.”

Shiro knocks their shoulders together and then doesn’t pull away. “I don’t doubt it. But I also know that you’d probably rather go home and crash. There’s no way you got enough sleep last night.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Talk to me,” Shiro says.

And, hell, Keith wants to.

“Pidge and Allura want me to do some sort of competition show. To raise the profile of the restaurant or whatever.”

“And you hate the idea.”

“I don’t want to be on TV. I don’t want people in the street recognizing me.”

“You’re not worried about the competition itself?”

Keith gives Shiro a flat look. “I can handle myself in a competition.”

“Oh, I know.”

“I don’t know. She said it would be good for me, too, to get my name out there.”

“She’s not wrong.”

Keith tightens his hand on his glass. “I don’t want to get my name out there.”

“Why not? You don’t want to open your own place someday?”

Keith would never say to Shiro, _well look how that worked out for you_ , but he is thinking it. The idea of having his own restaurant is equal parts exhilarating and terrifying.

“I don’t want to have to run a business. I don’t want to have to do what Pidge does. I just want to cook.”

“You should have my job, then.”

“I want to cook what I want.”

“Keith,” Shiro sighs. Keith knows that he sounds like a petulant child, but he’s into beer two and he’s had a long day and he just. He wants things to be simple. He doesn’t want to be seen unless he has to be. He doesn’t want to be a spectacle for people. He should tell Shiro this, because Shiro of all people would understand.

“I know,” he says, and his voice sounds defeated even to his own ears. “I just wish...” he doesn’t know what he wishes.

“Baby,” Shiro says, and loops an arm around Keith’s waist. “It’ll be okay. It really will. You’ll figure it out.

“I hope so.” Keith rests his head on Shiro’s shoulder, and they stay like that until last call.

**COURSE FIVE**   
_beef tenderloin_  
coffee  
chicory  
cayenne  
salt & pepper 

_cauliflower_  
thyme  
butter 

_marrow bones_  
butter  
rosemary 

_Crust beef with coffee, chicory and cayenne, salt and pepper. Sear and then finish in the oven. Steam cauliflower and then pureé with the liquid from the steaming, the butter, thyme, and salt and pepper. Roast marrow bones in oven. Blend marrow with butter, rosemary and salt to taste. Top steak with marrow butter, serve atop pureé._

Things carry on. Keith goes to work and avoids Pidge’s questions about his future. Eventually, she stops asking so much and settles for watching him with a calculating, if soft, look. Allura knows him well enough to not bring it up at all. Shiro, too, leaves the subject alone. The new menu is a hit, even if it stirs up anti-outworlder sentiment, people claiming that the restaurant is debasing itself and catering to outworlders too much. Keith tries to let it roll off his back, but he can see the way it makes Allura feel, even if she doesn’t talk about it. That’s the part he hates the most. She refuses to talk to him about it, too. Even though she knows. _It’s different_ , he can imagine her saying. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.

Mostly, though, things feel good. He and Shiro are resting comfortably on the edge of serious relationship. They’ve even been forced to admit it out loud. Not that it was a particular hurdle, but more that they both were intensely private in occasionally overlapping ways. In this case they shared the desire to not be teased constantly by their mutual friends. 

Keith sometimes thinks about the look on Shiro’s face when Keith had called him his boyfriend. It’s worth whatever stupid comments Lance makes.

So when Lance and Hunk come up beside him one afternoon, Keith assumes that nothing out of the ordinary is going on. Even the shifty looks on their faces aren’t that unusual. They probably have another inane bet going. It must not be a very big one, if Pidge and Allura aren’t in on it too. Keith always knows when Allura is involved because she asks him to help her scam everyone else. Keith usually agrees.

“So,” Hunk says, and that’s when Keith realizes this is maybe not what he thought it was. “About Shiro.”

“What about Shiro?”

“We’re just curious,” Lance assures him.

“Too nosy for your own good, you mean.”

“Potato, po-tah-to,” Hunk says with a shrug.

“We just wanted to know about his restaurant.”

“The one that folded?” Keith glares at Hunk, who raises his hands helplessly. Lance probably found out on his own then; not like it’s a state secret.

“Did he have another restaurant we don’t know about?”

“Ok, fine, what do you want to know?”

“Anything, honestly.”

“Well, tough luck. I don’t know anything. We basically fell out of touch as soon as he left Bushel. I hadn’t heard from him until he showed up here.”

“Pretty shady, don’t you think?” Hunk asks. Keith would have expected this from Lance, but from Hunk, too?

“Is this part of your ‘Allura is a kingpin’ conspiracy theory?”

“Not...necessarily,” Lance says. 

“Right.”

“He’s our friend. We just want to know more things about him.”

“Plus,” Hunk says, “we’re trying to be respectful. That’s why we’re asking you and not him.”

“I already told you, I don’t know. He never talks about it.”

“But that’s weird!” Lance insists. “Pidge thinks so too!”

“Oh, well now I believe you.”

“Sarcasm isn’t helpful,” Lance says sanctimoniously. Hunk and Keith roll their eyes in tandem.

“Look,” Keith says, his patience finally used up. “I don’t know anything about it. He doesn’t want to talk about it, and I’m not gonna press him. Does it really matter?”

“I guess not,” Hunk says quietly.

There must be something in Keith’s expression—and honestly, he can feel it himself, simmering there below the surface—that finally makes them back off. He’s being a little unreasonable, probably, but he wants to protect Shiro even if he doesn’t know why or from what. If Keith was in his position, he wouldn’t want to talk about his failed restaurant either. He flirts with the idea of talking to Pidge about it, but she’s not actually much better than the rest of them when it comes to stuff like this

_Glass houses_ , she would tell him. Which, fine, whatever.

He knows, a few hours in, that he’s going to end up asking Shiro about it. The idea won’t leave him alone. They’re seeing each other tomorrow, since it’s Keith’s day off. He’ll bring it up then, totally casual, and everything will be fine.

;

They’re at Keith’s apartment, because Shiro is still living in Allura’s tower (no point in wasting money on rent, they’d all agreed) and it’s weird for everyone involved if Keith and Shiro do date night there. Shiro’s picked the movie, which means that Keith isn’t really that emotionally invested in it. Instead, the gears in his head are spinning so fast he’s surprised steam isn’t coming out of his ears. 

“Whats up?” Shiro breaks through the mist.

Keith grunts.

“I can tell, you know.”

“I know.”

“So?”

Keith groans. Might as well get it over with. “What happened with Moon and Gold?”

Shiro’s face goes blank. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“I don’t care, I just. Hunk and Lance asked me about it and I guess it’s kind of weird that none of us know anything about it.”

“It went under,” Shiro says. There’s not a lot of emotion on his face, or at least much that Keith can interpret.

“I know,” he says. Tries to twist his face into something contrite. “But, you just went totally AWOL, after. You know, I didn’t even know if you were alive until I saw you with Allura.”

“It was embarrassing. Everyone talked about how it was going to be this huge success- that I was going to be this huge success. And then it failed.”

“Everything was failing then. It’s not your fault.”

“I’m sure there’s something I could have done.”

Keith doesn’t know this version of Shiro. He’d never given up on something in the entire time Keith has known him—failed dishes notwithstanding. He hadn’t given up on Keith, even when Keith had been a pricklier, more antisocial version of himself. He can’t believe that Shiro didn’t do everything he could to keep Moon and Gold open. Shiro had also never run from anything in his life. Or maybe that was the version of himself that he showed to Keith. Some sort of attempt to impress him, although Shiro hopefully knew him well enough to know that Keith doesn’t really care about toughness or anything like that. 

“So you just ran away?”

Shiro’s jaw clenches. 

“Maybe you don’t know everything about me.” It’s mean, even if Shiro can’t really hit the right tone to make it sound as cruel as it should. 

“I didn’t,” Keith starts. “That’s not what I meant.”

Maybe it was what he meant, though. Keith had thought, up until this exact moment, that he knew Shiro. Shiro had been. Always, someone who was entirely knowable, someone whose layers peeled away easily. Not like Keith, not like Allura.

Shiro tilts his head.

“Fine,” Keith admits. “I didn’t think you were the sort of person who just ran away from things. I thought I knew you.”

Shiro does something complicated with his face that Keith can’t untangle and doesn’t think he would like even if he could figure it out. The entire situation is out of his control, and he doesn’t even know how it happened.

“I didn’t think that was something that would upset you,” he tries. Maybe Shiro doesn’t like Keith being too familiar. Maybe they have different definitions of what ‘familiar’ is. 

Shiro presses his lips into a fine line. “It’s just not any of your business, what happened before.”

This, at least, Keith can work with. There are plenty of things in his own ‘before’ that he would consider basically no one’s business but his own—maybe it could have been, or was, Allura’s once, and maybe he would let it be Shiro’s , but—and there were things that Allura had kept private for a long time. All Keith has learned from this is that those sorts of secrets are most damaging to the person keeping them. 

Of course, all the knowledge in the world can’t stop him from being upset with Shiro. 

“What if I want you to be my business?” he snaps. It’s not the right thing to say, he thinks, as soon as it comes out of his mouth. 

“You don’t get to make that decision.”

“What the fuck, Shiro?”

“What?”

And, well, Keith doesn’t have anything to say in response to that. Why are you trying to hurt me is the closest he can get, but that won’t ever cross his lips. If this is going to be a fight, he’s going to fucking fight.

“You’re hiding something,” Keith says, “and eventually I’m going to find out what it is.”

Shiro purses his lips but remains silent. Keith forces himself to make eye contact. He leans into his natural expression, which is apparently ‘disinterest bordering on contempt’ according to everyone at the restaurant. 

Shiro, on the other hand, looks more visibly upset. In a burst of spite, Keith wonders what right Shiro has to look upset about this when he’s the one who turned it into a fight. Maybe Keith shouldn’t have brought it up. But Shiro went for the jugular in a way that Keith never would have expected from him. Keith has spent a lot of time and energy trying to get this mode of thinking down, of taking a step back and seeing both sides and having a measured, considered reaction. All of that means jack shit right now, though. He feels twenty-one again and furious, like he’s going to jump out of his skin if he doesn’t do something. 

So he starts pacing for lack of anything else. Shiro follow his movements but still won’t say anything. Fine. Keith can keep silent, too. 

As it turns out, he can keep quiet for longer than Shiro can. After what feels like months, Shiro stands up too. He doesn’t look angry, exactly. His mouth is drawn tight and in his eyes there’s something like hurt. Keith can’t square any of this with what he knows or understands. There’s something huge in the gap between then and now, and he has no idea what it is. Pressing hasn’t done him any good.

He moves so that Shiro has a clear path to the door. 

“You want me to go?” Shiro asks. Keith feels like his ribs are on fire.

“I think you might want to. I don’t have anything else to say.”

Shiro opens his mouth for a moment as though he’s going to respond. He thinks better of it and shakes his head. 

Keith watches him leave.

;

The next day is one of the top ten worst of Keith’s life. He hadn’t been able to sleep after Shiro left, and couldn’t think of any solution to it but to drink the rest of the beers in his fridge and send Allura a series of alternatingly furious and maudlin texts. She didn’t respond until morning, either because she went to sleep at a reasonable hour or she was too busy dealing with Shiro. Keith hopes it’s the former, even though he knows that he shouldn’t make people take sides. There might not even be something to take sides on. Shiro could come to the restaurant tonight after service ends and apologize. He could have been drunk, or just caught off guard, or even mind-controlled (since his arm really does look like outworlder tech, and Keith is sure it’s part of Shiro’s secret). 

Allura’s response does little to quiet the storm in his head, and so he goes to the restaurant ready to make heads roll. 

His expression does a good job of warding off most of his co-workers, who have the self-preservation instincts necessary to avoid a pissed-of man with a knife.

Pidge, however, does not have those skills. Nor do Hunk or Lance, but that’s less surprising. At first they just walk by him and make extraordinarily unsubtle glances his way. They don’t seem to have any particular schedule to it, so Keith can’t even get used to their movements. He just waits for someone to work up the nerve to actually come talk to him. He can’t tell if he wants to talk about it or not. He wants to let something out: smoke, a primal scream, something, but not a reasoned explanation of what happened last night.

Hunk is the one who eventually comes up to him, right before they’re about to start service—because why not?--and asks, “Is everything okay?”

Keith just snorts. The three of them probably decided by committee thank Hunk should make the opening move since he’s the most gentle, conversationally. But if this is all he’s got, Keith can’t imagine what Pidge and Lance were thinking of saying.

“Okay,” Hunk says, “obviously everything isn’t okay. But we just want you to know that we’re here for you, if you wanna talk about it.”

“Maybe after work,” Keith says. Hunk brightens like he wasn’t expecting Keith to give in so easily, and heads back to his station.

Keith spends the rest of the evening ignoring the whispers that pass between Lance, Hunk and Pidge whenever there’s even the briefest of lulls. He focuses instead on the movements of his knife, of the rhythm of the kitchen, the way the new line cook’s hands shake when she plates. He goes over to help her and finds that his hands are shaking, too. But he knows how to work around it, which she doesn’t.

When service ends, there’s no family dinner and Allura doesn’t sweep in to take them all out for drinks. Instead, Keith tidies up his station as slowly as he can without making it obvious, and waits for the rest of the staff to trickle out. 

“You’re buying my drinks if you want me to talk about it,” he says before Lance can get a word in.

“Fine,” Lance grumbles. “Nothing fancy, though.”

“When has Keith ever wanted a fancy drink?” Pidge asks.

Lance shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe that’s his heartbreak drink.”

“I’m not heartbroken,” Keith says, in a tone that is definitely a little heartbroken. He glares at everyone, daring them to comment on it. 

“So, June’s?” Hunk suggests.”

“Sure,” Pidge says, and Lance and Keith nod their agreement as well.

June’s is a cozy, beer- and wine-only place several blocks away. Allura tends not to go there, which Keith knows Hunk knows, so this is probably to make sure that they don’t run into Shiro and Allura. Not that Keith knows for sure that Allura is babysitting Shiro through this fight. He doesn’t even know if Shiro needs babysitting—although that’s petty and cruel; he remembers the look on Shiro’s face when he left.

Once they’ve settled at a table in the back corner and Keith has carefully selected one of the three most expensive beers on the menu—suck it, Lance—Pidge leans forward, and the light glints off her glasses in such a sinister way that it must be deliberate.

“So, Keith, what happened?”

“Shiro and I had….a fight, I guess.”

“You guess?” Lance asks.

“Well,” Keith pauses and takes a gulp, savors the bitterness of the beer before continuing, “there wasn’t really any yelling so I don’t know if that counts as a fight or just a disagreement.”

“No yelling?” Hunk asks.

“A little,” Keith admits. “I can get loud. But Shiro was calm about the whole thing.”

“He’s a pretty level-headed guy, seems like,” Hunk says.

“But it’s weird to not get worked up if you’re fighting with your boyfriend,” Lance says.

“What were you arguing about?” Pidge asks. 

This is the part Keith doesn’t want to talk about. He’s done so well at bottling this up and letting it seep out slowly, but he’s still so angry and hurt about the whole thing, and he never would have asked Shiro about what had happened to him if Hunk and Lance hadn’t wanted to know.

“I asked him about what happened to Moon and Gold,” he says, jaw tight.

“Moon and Gold?” Lance asks.

“Shiro’s restaurant,” Pidge tells him without taking her eyes off of Keith.

“Oh,” Hunk says under his breath. He must have realized where this is going.

Keith continues, voice clipped. “He said it wasn’t any of my business. I said I wanted it to be. He said that wasn’t my choice. Then he left. That’s the gist of it.”

The three of them just stare at him in shock. Keith shrugs defensively and stares into his glass.

“That,” Pidge says slowly, “doesn’t sound like Shiro at all.”

I know, Keith wants to say.

“Yeah,” Lance agrees. “He must be hiding something. We should-”

“Or not,” Hunk cuts him off before he can finish.

“That’s what caused this in the first place,” Keith snaps. “I didn’t care about what had happened, but you guys wanted to know, and look where that got me.”

“We’re sorry,” Pidge says and Lance and Hunk echo her. “No one could have known that this would happen.”

“I know,” Keith admits. He finishes his beer. Lance collects the empty glasses and heads up to the bar for round two.

“Can we make it up to you?” Hunk asks.

Keith just gives him a blank expression. “Not unless you can convince Shiro to take back everything he said.”

“I mean,” Pidge says, “we’re very persuasive people.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen your methods. Don’t even try. I assume dragging other people into this will only make it worse.”

“Fair,” Hunk agrees.

Lance comes back with a delicate configuration of glasses. “We should switch to pitchers after this,” he says.

“If we can all agree on a beer,” Hunk adds.

“At this point,” Keith admits, “I’ll drink whatever.”

“Is that unusual?” Pidge asks. Keith flips her off. 

“You’ve just got such a discerning palate,” Lance says in a joking tone. “You and the princess.”

“Why are you making fun of me for being good at my job?”

“Hey! I never said you were good at your job. I just said you had a wacky palate.”

Pidge hums, and Lance turns to look at her. “I didn’t!”

“It’s ok,” Keith tells him, “I know you look up to me. Find me inspirational.”

Lance gags. It’s not clear if he’s doing it deliberately or not.

They finish the second round. Get a pitcher. Argue about it. Play a game they came up with years ago: try to recombine all the bar food ingredients into a fine dining meal. Hunk wins. Eventually, it gets too late even for them, and they head to the door.

“Look,” Pidge says, before they all get out of one another’s earshot, “Keith, we like Shiro.”

“We really do,” Hunk adds.

“But if you want us to do anything. Like, I don’t know, find out what happened to Moon and Gold, we’d do it.”

Keith stops dead in his tracks. 

“I’ll take that as a no,” Pidge says. “Even though it wouldn’t hurt anything.”

Keith just shakes his head and walks away.

;

He doesn’t think about much of anything on his way back home. The inside of his head feels like overcooked eggplant and his heart isn’t pumping blood but thick sand. His phone buzzes with what must be apologetic texts from at least Pidge.

When he gets back to his apartment he has the sudden realization that he’s hungry. They hadn’t bothered with snacks at the bar. His body moves almost on autopilot: the fridge to the counter to the stove. First, he cooks the beef, then grills the quesadillas in butter until they’re golden and crisp. The motions are soothing and almost meditative, as if Keith had been practicing them every day of his life. 

In reality, Keith rarely makes quesadillas, rarely even cooks for himself at all. But he’s imagined the process. Shiro had used to make them for him when they had worked together. He would laugh and tell Keith that this is his parents’ favorite dish of Shiro’s. Keith would tell him that he’d said the same thing last time, and Shiro would just shrug, and Keith would watch the way his back shifted under his shirt.

Nothing before or after has tasted the same way.

He’s made four quesadillas just out of habit, Keith realizes halfway through eating his first. Out of spite he takes a picture of the remaining three, arranged as artistically as he can manage in such an inebriated state, and sends it to Shiro. It doesn’t need a caption.

Ninety-five seconds later (not that Keith was counting) Shiro replies:

**Looks nice.**

**What the fuck** , Keith types out, and then thinks better of it. Instead he just sends back, **thanks.**

Suddenly, he’s not so hungry anymore. Everything tastes flat, just swathes of salt and fat with nothing to break it up. He still eats, because they won’t keep and he still feels guilt at throwing food out.

Another buzz, Shiro again.

**Keith, I’m sorry**

Keith’s heart skips a beat.

Then: **maybe it’s for the best. We should give each other some space.**

Oh. Okay. Keith stares at his phone. There’s a cyclone tearing through his brain. This was a mistake, to get so invested in Shiro so fast, to have tried to ask him about the past at all, to have wanted anything more than a casual friends-with-benefits arrangement. If this is what Shiro wants, Keith thinks with a snarl, then this is what he’s going to get.

**We might as well just break up, then. For good.** Keith sends the message and then tosses his phone across the room. 

Finally, he lets himself cry.

;

Shiro never replies to his message, so Keith does his best to move on. He tells everyone at work and then makes it clear that anyone who asks him about it will be the next thing he filets. He doesn’t bother trying to date casually; he can’t seem to make himself care. Everything he cooks tastes weird, to everyone who tries it.

“Are you salting this stuff with your tears?” Lance asks him once.

Obviously he’s not actually crying over his plates, but that’s more or less what’s happening. Pidge told him that when he cooked in a good mood his food tasted even better. _Luminous_ had been the word she’d used, which Keith didn’t understand at all.

Allura drags him out, after making it clear that she’s not going to get in the middle of things. (“He still works for me, Keith, and I can’t fire him because he broke my ex-boyfriend’s heart.”) She lets him talk about it, but she never offers to go talk to Shiro, or arrange a meeting between them. She won’t even give him updates on Shiro if he doesn’t ask. And when he does, because of course he does, she gives him a sad, soft look before admitting that Shiro has seemed down since the break-up. 

One day, over brunch, Keith finally asks her if she knows anything about what happened to Shiro.

She pauses, fork hovering over her plate. “I have some guesses,” she admits, “but he hasn’t told me anything.”

“It wasn’t on his resume?”

“No,” Allura says. “There was just a gap. I thought you were just going to let this lie.”

“That was before,” Keith tells her. “I don’t have anything to lose, now. I wanna know what was so terrible that I couldn’t know about it.”

Allura sighs. “I can’t even begin to explain all the things about that statement that are terrible.”

“It’s not like I’m actively investigating, or whatever. Just, if you happened to know, I would want to know, too.”

“Don’t drag me into this. We both know Pidge is already working on it.”

“Actually,” Keith says, “I technically don’t know that. I might have even told her not to.”

“Clever.”

“Do you really think I should let this lie?”

“I don’t know,” Allura admits. “I assume you don’t want to hear me analyze your relationship.”

Keith can’t help but smile. “I made it through you analyzing ours all the time, so if you want to, go ahead.”

He still loves her laugh. “I’m sure there were some benefits to sitting through all of my monologues.”

“Not saying there weren’t, but you talked a _lot_.”

“I was trying to figure things out! Humans are very different than Alteans in many ways.”

Keith steals a piece of fruit from her plate and waits for her to continue, eyebrows raised.

“Oh, don’t give me that. I just think that you both still care about one another, and I don’t want you to do something that you’ll regret.”

“I’m not going to do anything!”

“On the other hand,” Allura starts and Keith perks up, “whatever this secret is is probably tearing him apart, if it’s so bad that he’d break up with you over it.”

Keith nods. “I want him to tell me, even if we don’t get back together.”

Allura is just watching him. Keith thinks about abandoning this thread of conversation but realizes she’ll just ferret it out of him later. Might as well bite the bullet.

“Shiro was the first person who really believed in me,” Keith tells her. “He saw me, through all the,” he waves his hand around.

“The bullshit?”

Keith glares. “Yeah, if you wanna call it that. Who knows where I’d be if he hadn’t took the time to talk to me. He was the one who really convinced me to stick it out with cooking.”

“You never mentioned.”

“I mean, then we sort of fell out of touch and then next thing I knew no one could get ahold of him and we kind of thought he was dead, or he’d jumped planets or something. I didn’t want to think about it.”

“Maybe he did,” Allura says, “jump planets.”

“Why would that be a secret?”

“People get weird about it. You know how they talk about outworlders.”

They both look down.

“That doesn’t make sense, though. There and back in just a year?”

“True.”

“Maybe it does have something to do with outworlders, though. I mean, his arm has to be outworlder tech, right?”

“Admittedly, yes,” Allura says.

Keith shrugs. “So maybe that’s what the problem is.”

Allura is too perceptive, even with mimosas in play, so the next thing she says is: “Does he know?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should tell him.”

“I thought about it,” Keith admits. “But now, I don’t know.”

“It could help.”

“Or not. I mean, I doubt whatever happened to him made him any fonder of outworlders. It might just make everything worse.”

Allura takes a sip of her drink. “I don’t know Shiro as well as you-”

“Debatable.”

“Not. But I don’t think that there’s anything that you could tell him about yourself that would drive him away.”

“I mean, he’s already left, so you’re probably right.”

Allura kicks him under the table. “I’m serious,” she says. “He’s definitely pining for you.”

“He’s the one who broke up with me! Sort of,” Keith hedges. “He doesn’t get to pine.”

“I know,” she agrees. “That’s why I haven’t talked to him about it.”

“I thought that you were just trying to stay neutral.”

Allura winks. “That too.”

After that there isn’t much else to say, because Keith knows she’ll keep trying to talk him out of investigating and into telling Shiro about his mom. And while he respects Allura’s approach to things---she is technically a diplomat, after all—her way is not his way. Instead the conversation drifts to more innocuous topics, and by the time Keith makes it back home he feels better than he has in weeks.

;

Another month passes with minimal contact from Shiro. He sends one text ( **congrats on the new review)** , and Keith replies two weeks later with a picture of an in-progress dish. He still hasn’t come by the restaurant, although Allura has resumed her semi-frequent visits. Keith’s food shifts from “weird, like, bad weird” to “fine, if uninspired” and so Pidge lets up on her relentless badgering. It was probably an attempt to cheer him up, but at best made him irritated and heavy-handed with his seasoning.

One morning the four of them have come in early to taste-test some of Hunk’s new ideas. They’re going through a series of macarons that Hunk made to test the limits of Pidge’s “we’re not a classic French restaurant” line, when Pidge says, spraying crumbs all around her, “I think I figured out what Shiro was up to.”

Keith nearly chokes.

Lance and Hunk press in closer around Pidge as though this is somehow important to them, too, and Keith feels a bolt of resentment that pushes him to keep his distance. Pidge gives him a questioning look in response, but doesn’t say anything.

“Yeah,” she says, finally swallowing the rest of her macaron. “I think it has something to do with outworlders.”

“Obviously,” Lance says, “I mean, have you seen his arm?”

Keith groans. “Everyone’s seen his arm, Lance. If that’s all there is, I’m out.”

“You really think that’s all I’ve got?” Pidge asks.

“Prove me wrong.”

“With pleasure.” Pidge sits up on the counter, ignoring Hunk’s despairing sigh, and smirks at her audience. “As you may remember, I’m a genius.”

“Right.”

“So, I did a little digging into Moon and Gold’s finances, and I found something interesting.”

“You have to speed this up,” Keith says. 

Pidge glares. “I’m trying to set a mood, here, okay.”

Keith glares back, and Hunk and Lance look back and forth between the two of them as though it’s a tennis match. Eventually Pidge must feel sorry for him (since Keith has never before won a staring contest with her) because she breaks contact with a roll of her eyes.

“Fine, since my sense of dramatic pacing isn’t appreciated here, I’ll just cut to the chase: it looks like his restaurant was backed by outworlders.”

“So?” Hunk asks. “Allura invests in us and she’s an outworlder.”

“Right, right, but this,” Pidge says, “was definitely not an above-board investment. I did some snooping around to find out who was in the city around that time, trying to get a foothold and all that, and whoever it was, there are a couple of candidates, is bad business.”

“How do you know all this?” Lance asks.

“I told you, I’m a genius. Plus, I know people.”

“That sounds shady,” Hunk says.

“Yeah,” Keith adds, “it does. Who’s your source? How can we know we can trust them?”

“I wish I could tell you guys, but I can’t.”

All three of them stare at her with blank faces.

“I’m not kidding! I already wasn’t supposed to be poking around this kind of stuff. If anyone finds out I told you three idiots, I’m in huge trouble.”

“Trouble with who?” Keith asks.

“Maybe I’ll tell you once we’ve figured out what happened.”

“Don’t we already know?”

“Not really,” Pidge says.

“What the fuck?”

“What I mean,” she says quickly, “is that we don’t know what the outworlders did or what they wanted. Just that they were involved. But it gives us a place to start.”

“I assume,” Keith sighs, “that you want me to ask him about it.”

“No offense, buddy, but what do you have to lose?” Lance asks. 

“Lance,” Hunk hisses, but Keith shakes his head.

“Fair enough. Allura wants me to talk to him, too. And you’re right, I guess I don’t have anything to lose.”

“That’s the spirit?” Hunk says.

“Close enough,” Pidge agrees. “I expect a full report within the week.”

“Are you gonna give me time off to do it?” Keith asks.

“Great question. Absolutely not.”

;

_Nothing to lose_ , Keith thinks to himself as he walks home that night. The nights are growing cooler and cooler, now right at the edge of jacket-required weather. Keith likes this weather best, when the wind nips at his cheekbones and his chin but doesn’t bite. He’s not built for true winter, always the brunt of jokes when he shows up wearing a down jacket, and a scarf, and hat, and gloves when it’s only early December. 

Shiro had teased him about it too, in his own gentle way. Keith had wanted to suggest that Shiro warm him up instead, but it had been early days and he hadn’t realized he could give voice to those wants yet. 

_Nothing to lose_. Not entirely true. If he wants the truth from Shiro, he owes him the same, and given what he now knows, that could go very badly.

_Nothing to lose_. Shiro won’t do anything to harm him. That he knows for sure. But he can imagine the expression on Shiro’s face when he finds out: the cold creeping into his eyes and the flat, disappointed line of his mouth. 

_Nothing to lose_. He’s not a coward. 

**Can we talk** , he texts Shiro, and heads home to wait.

**COURSE SIX**   
_ham_  
fresh english peas  
leeks  
onions   
mint  
chicken stock  
chives  
crème fraîche  
butter  
salt & pepper 

_Sauteé leeks and onions in butter, add chicken stock and peas and cook until tender. Pureé soup with mint until smooth. Whisk in crème fraîche and chives. Serve hot with ham._

Shiro takes his sweet time getting back to Keith. When there’s no response for the first twenty-four hours, Keith considers calling Allura and asking her what’s going on, or just showing up at her place and hoping that she’ll let him in to ambush Shiro. If anyone should be apprehensive about this, it should be Keith, since he’s the one who’s had his heart broken.

He’s antsy at work, too, which everyone immediately notices and, shockingly, proceeds to ignore. Someone must have said something—what, Keith can’t imagine—since even Lance is gentler than usual with his ribbing. 

He finds out the source of this almost immediately. Pidge comes up to him the next afternoon, as Shiro’s silence passes the thirty-six hour mark and Keith’s marinades start to taste like “despair.”

“I know that this isn’t a great time,” she starts.

“When has that ever stopped you from giving me more work.”

Pidge twists her mouth in an apologetic way. “Do I push you too much?”

“What? No. I’m just giving you a hard time. Is everything okay?’

“I should be asking you that.”

“I still haven’t heard back from Shiro. To be fair, he was never great about texting back.”

“I wouldn’t have expected that. He seems so...”

“I know, right?” Keith says. A bubble of fondness wells up in his chest despite his mood.

“Anyway,” Pidge says. She’s leaning against the counter and avoiding eye contact. She must be nervous, Keith realizes, which is insane. He’s never seen Pidge nervous about anything before. Maybe about the finances, but that’s it. 

“Out with it,” Keith says. “Whatever it is, I’m not gonna be upset.”

“You say that now,” Pidge says.

Keith just fixes her with a pointed stare.

“I may have mentioned your name to one of the producers of _Top Chef_.”

“What the fuck?” Keith hisses, not wanting to draw attention. “I told you I didn’t want to do any TV bullshit.”

“I know,” Pidge says. “I’m sorry, I panicked. Their application numbers have gone down and so they’re actively looking for people, and they came to me and I didn’t know who else to say.”

“Literally anyone else!”

“But you’re the best. Don’t tell Lance and Hunk I said it, but it’s true. If anyone from the restaurant is gonna go on TV, it has to be you.”

Keith is speechless. Pidge keeps babbling apologies that Keith doesn’t register. He feels crushed under the weight of everything; he won’t do it, because he hates being watched and he doesn’t want to be some sort of famous chef, but he doesn’t want to break Pidge’s heart like this, and let her down. To compound the misery, he knows that this would be easier with Shiro, who would listen to him and give him solid advice but not crowd him with opinions or reminders that this is part of a bigger picture.

“I’m sorry,” Pidge says again. “You obviously don’t have to say yes to them. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

“Right.”

“Uh, just, don’t tell Lance that I said you’re the best.”

If Keith were in a better mood he’d make some sort of joke about this. Instead, he turns back to his station and waits until Pidge’s footsteps fade into the background before he screws his eyes shut and bites down on a scream. It isn’t fair that all of this is coming down on him at once. He can’t say anything about it because Lance really will take it to heart that Pidge picked Keith over him, She should ask Lance, Keith thinks furiously, because while he may not be the better chef he’d be better on screen. He loves talking and being talked about, and can handle people and situations in a way that Keith can’t.

It isn’t fair, he tells himself again as he focuses his breathing and tries to center his attention on the food in front of him. But it never had been fair. Cooking, in the abstract, had seemed fair to him. You learn something and the better you do it the better the food you produce, and Keith was good at it. He had the motor skills for it, and the single-minded focus, and the palate. 

As it turned out, the restaurant industry was anything but fair.

Keith should have known, but for every way that he was unusually worldly, he was unbelievably naive in another. (Lance still can’t believe how little Keith knows about the pop culture of their alleged shared childhood.) He’d started out washing dishes and watching the line cooks out of the corner of his eye. He never planned on going to culinary school, which seemed a waste of time and money that could be better spent out in the real world. 

This attitude served him well enough until he realized that he didn’t want to work in diners or mid-range brunch places for the rest of his life and decided that fine dining was where he belonged. Experimental techniques, carefully planned menus designed to be more about the experience of eating than actually feeding people, limited seating: all of these things appealed to some sort of perverse part of him. 

Suddenly he’d been outclassed by everyone around him, out-jargoned, out-techniqued. When he’d finally gotten a chance at Bushel—he’d walked in, heard that Iverson was as impressed by ballsiness as he was by actually skill—he’d kept his head down and done what he knew would get him through: he didn’t speak unless spoken to and never let himself get sloppy. 

It doesn’t matter. Everyone goes out of there way to let him know that he’s the odd man out: different accent, close-lipped, always having to figure things out from context or by watching other people. The resting bitchface and the fact that he was capable of casually showing up most of the other cooks in the mise en place challenges they’d occasionally set up meant that everyone thought he was too cocky.

Shiro had been the only one who’d bothered to put in any effort with Keith, and Keith didn’t really make it worth Shiro’s while for weeks. He gave one-word answers at best, curled into himself whenever they were talking, and only took Shiro’s advice once he was sure Shiro wasn’t looking at him. And still, Shiro kept trying. 

Keith has never told anyone, but what basically happened is that Shiro insinuated his way into Keith’s life solely because he was so obnoxious about it. If Shiro hadn’t been himself—all the things that Keith loves about him—Keith would have stopped talking to him at some point, but the reason Keith finally started is because Shiro was just always fucking there. Keith was even less outgoing back then, but even he couldn’t hold out forever. 

Shiro was the one who convinced him that culinary school was worth the investment, and helped him find ways of funding himself, and talked Iverson into keeping Keith around as a sort of part-time intern while he was in school. Iverson didn’t ever warm up to him, presumably because Keith failed to be appropriately awed by him. He’d tried, once, to explain that authority figures in general didn’t hold any mystic sway in his life. It hadn’t gone over well and had just cemented everyone’s opinions of him.No matter how much he learned or improved or tried to fit in after that (not that he really tried that hard) nothing ever changed. 

He doesn’t want to go on TV and relive that experience. He doesn’t want to have to keep his head down and ignore a room full of hostile cooks. And of course it’s a competition, and it’s different, and he knows that everyone would point out that friendships have blossomed on previous seasons. Keith is confident that he won’t have that experience.

The crushing unfairness of it all, the worst part, is that he wants to talk to Shiro about it. He wants Shiro to give voice to the other side of this argument for him. But he can’t even have that because he ruined it by asking too many questions. 

Breathe. He’ll figure it out. Allura will let him talk it out with here, if nothing else. 

He’s still at work. Right. He’s butchering.

So he does. It’s muscle memory at this point. He can focus all of his hurricane energy on the cleaving of flesh from bone.

He moves through the rest of the day as though in a fog. He knows that everyone is concerned for him, but is grateful that no one came up to him to talk about it. Pidge even goes out of her way to give him space, which is more unnerving to the rest of the staff than Keith’s icy silence.

He leaves without a word to anyone else. 

The train ride back passes as a blur. Nothing comes into focus until he’s finally back in his apartment, sitting on the edge of his bed and just breathing through it. Keith doesn’t know how much time passes before he decides he can move.

He checks his phone, expecting the flurry of concerned texts from Lance and Hunk and Pidge (which are there, and both heartwarming and infuriating), but not expecting, buried in his inbox, a response from Shiro. 

**Of course. When?**

Shiro has no right to seem so kind in a text message. 

**Are u still up?**

If he’s lucky, he’ll catch Shiro right before bed and get a prompt response. If not, he’ll hear back in a couple of days, at which point the sting of Pidge’s request will have faded and he might not even care about talking it through. 

**Yeah, everything okay?**

Looks like Keith can catch a lucky break after all. He doesn’t know what to say to Shiro, though. If he says the truth, which is that he’s not okay, Shiro will be over in an instant. That feels like setting a trap, though. 

He ends up going with, **I don’t know.**

**Should I come over?**

**Why are you being so nice to me?**

**:| See u soon**

Keith can’t help but grin at his phone. While he waits for Shiro he goes through the rest of his texts, ignoring all of the ones that ask how he’s doing. He gets snagged on one from Pidge that reads:

**everyone who ate the venison looked totally miserable according to the servers. payback for springing that on u at work, I guess**

**lmao I dont acutally have food magic u kno, right**

**uh you definitely do i’ve been keeping a spreadsheet**

**pidge what the hell**

**ill show u someday**

**like tomorrow**

**nah**

**cmon man u cant tell me u have a secret spreadsheet abt me and not share it**

**we could make a deal**

**ru kidding me?!**

**like 40% maybe**

** >>>>[**

**o shit shiros here, i wont forget this**

**!!!**

**u don’t scare me tho**

“It’s unlocked,” Keith says when he hears Shiro knock.

“You probably shouldn’t leave your door unlocked,” Shiro says in lieu of a greeting.

“Eh, it’s fine. I mean, I’m here.” Keith stands awkwardly. 

“Right.” Shiro rubs the back of his head and avoids eye contact. “So, what’s up?”

“Something completely different from when I first texted you.”

“Well, should we go in order?”

Keith shrugs in agreement, and gestures to the stools.

“Before we start,” he says, “I just have to ask. Why are you being so nice to me?”

Shiro furrows his brow. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because we broke up and stopped speaking?”

“I was trying to give you space. Just because we broke up doesn’t mean I don’t still care about you. I thought you were okay with being friends with your exes.”

“Don’t bring Allura into this.”

Shiro raises his eyebrows but lets the subject drop. He leans forward and looks at Keith expectantly.

“I don’t know how to say this.”

Shiro doesn’t offer to help him. 

“I just,” Keith bites at his lips, “this is probably going to upset you but whatever, it’d come out anyway.”

Now Shiro at least looks interested ad not like he’s humoring Keith.

“We found out-well, Pidge found out-what happened with Moon and Gold.”

Shiro’s face blanks out, so Keith barrels on before anything can come of it.

“And, Shiro, look, I don’t know why you were afraid to tell me. I don’t care about outworlders. I...”

“Did Pidge tell you exactly who financed me?”

“She said it was outworlders, had it narrowed down to just a few groups but didn’t give a definitive answer.”

“Right,” Shiro says. He looks down at his hands, which are twisted together in his lap. “Keith, it’s not that I think you hate outworlders. But you don’t know who they are.”

“Then tell me! I don’t get why you think you have to do this.”

“Do what?”

“This martyr bullshit. Whatever they did to you had to be awful, I mean, you did a really good job of hiding it but I do still know you and I can tell that you haven’t let go of it. But I don’t care! There’s nothing that you could tell me that would make me want to leave you.”

There are tears shimmering in Shiro’s eyes. “That’s not why. I wanted, I still want, to keep you safe.”

“From what?”

“From them! From the Galra.”

“The...Galra?”

“The outworlders who funded me, and who gave me this.” Shiro gestures to his arm.

“I’ve heard of them,” Keith says.

Moment of truth, then. 

“You’ve heard of them,” Shiro echoes.

“Yeah, I, uh, the name came up a few years ago when I was looking for my mom.”

“You said you never knew her.”

“I didn’t,” Keith agrees. “But when I turned eighteen my dad somehow found out my address and sent me a letter. I didn’t read it for years. Telling me about her.”

“Did outworlders take her?”

Keith laughs bitterly. “No. She’s an outworlder. Or was? I don’t even know if she’ still alive.”

Shiro just stares.

“That’s why, I told you, I don’t care about what happened to you.”

“That won’t keep you safe, though. Even if you tell them you’re half-whatever, they’ll still wanna hurt you.”

“Why would they come for me?”

“I don’t know if they’re done with me. I can’t take that risk.”

“I know you wouldn’t leave a debt unpaid.”

Shiro gestures to his arm, helplessly. Keith can’t resist the urge to move closer to Shiro, standing in his space and curling his hand around Shiro’s metal forearm, tight enough to stop him from shifting away but light enough to qualify as tender. Shiro curls his free hand around Keith’s hip, in turn. 

“It was Iverson who sent them to me, you know. They must have been after him for something and he told them I was leaving and looking for investors.”

“Fucking Iverson.”

Shiro pulls him closer and tucks his chin over Keith’s shoulder.

“Fucking Iverson,” he mutters. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Keith asks again.

“To keep you safe,” Shiro says again, but his heart’s not in it.

“Shiro,” Keith says. The name sticks in his throat. “Really?”

“Yes,” he insists. “I just, I have the feeling that they’re never going to actually leave me alone. That they’re just waiting for the right time. You might think I’ve paid of my debt, but that doesn’t mean they do. Iverson’d owned Bushel for ages when he gave me to them.”

“Iverson’s an asshole who’s always looking out for himself. He’s probably in all sorts of different shit. Maybe he even did it to get rid of the competition.”

“What?”

“You’re a better chef than Iverson and everyone knows it. Iverson knew if back then.”

“I don’t want to think about why he did it.”

“I’m just trying to make you see that they’re not going to come back for you.”

“You can’t know that! It’s not a risk that you should take.”

Keith steps back a little so that he can look Shiro in the eyes. “Shiro, don’t look away.”

Shiro sighs, but turns his head back towards Keith. “What?”

“You’re right. We can’t know for sure that the Galra will leave you alone. But that doesn’t mean you should be alone if they come. I can hold my own, and don’t you dare pretend like I can’t, and if they happen to know anything about my mom, even better. Allura would jump at the chance to hit back at the Galra. Protecting me doesn’t mean not telling me anything. And you know that, on some level, I know you do.”

“Maybe you have a point,” Shiro says. Despite the calm words Keith can see that Shiro’s mouth is trembling, and he moves closer.

“Just tell me,” Keith whispers.

Shiro’s grip on him tightens. “I hate that it happened.”

“I mean,” Keith starts but then Shiro keeps speaking, his breath tickling the knobs of Keith’s spine that crest above his shirt. 

“I feel so stupid,” he says. “That this happened to me. I mean, everyone said I had the whole world in front of me, and I ended up as a fucking...lab rat. It isn’t fair.”

Shiro’s voice breaks at last, and a puddle of hot tears pools on Keith’s shoulder. Keith can’t think of anything to say ins response, so he just crowds closer into Shiro’s space, until his knees are pressed against the bars of the stool.

Shiro cries quietly, but with his whole body. When Keith wraps his arms around Shiro he can feel his back shaking. They stay like that for a long time, as Keith whispers “I love you, I love you” into Shiro’s hair.

Eventually Shiro stops crying.

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Keith says as he steps back. Shiro gives a watery, rueful smile but complies.

“Thank you,” he says instead. “I needed that.”

“I know.”

“So superior,” Shiro teases. It’s weak, but Keith takes it as a positive sign.

By unspoken agreement they get ready for bed—Keith has never cared about sharing a toothbrush, which is probably one of the reasons Lance called him feral for months—and once they’re lying down, curled towards each other but not actually touching, Shiro says:

“I am sorry, but only because you said there was something else you wanted to talk about, too.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “It’s really not that big of a deal. Compared to everything else.”

“Still,” Shiro says, “I’d like to hear it. It’d be nice to have something to take my mind off of...”

“The crushing weight of the past?”

“Exactly,” Shiro laughs.

“Pidge gave my name to the _Top Chef_ people. She says they were bugging her for names and she still thinks I’m the best choice.”

“You are. You’re one of the best cooks I’ve ever met, Keith. And you’re only going to get better.”

“I couldn’t do it,” Keith says. “Cameras everywhere, people everywhere, plus I have a weird outworlder palate.”

Shiro nods. “That does explain a lot, actually. But you’re smart enough to use it to your advantage, I think.”

“You’re really gonna take Pidge’s side on this?”

“No,” Shiro says, “I’m on your side. I’m always on your side.”

Keith scoots closer to him so that he can press his face into Shiro’s chest. “You think I should do it?”

“I don’t think it’d be as bad as you’re making it out to be, but if you don’t want to, you shouldn’t. 

Keith groans. “I don’t know. Pidge should just do it herself if she’s so into it.”

The soothing circles that Shiro had been rubbing on Keith’s back stop. “She wouldn’t do that.”

“What?”

“It’s hard to keep a low profile on national television.”

“Pidge? Keeping a low profile?”

“Did she not tell you?”

“She told you?”

“Do you even know what we’re talking about?”

“No,” Keith admits. 

“Okay, well, first of all, she never told me. I just figured it out. Second of all, it probably still isn’t my place.”

“Shiro, I swear to God.”

“You can’t tell anyone else.”

“Who would I tell?”

“Ok, fair enough. Her real name isn’t Pidge Gunderson. Her last name is Holt. Pidge is a nickname.”

“Holt,” Keith repeats. “It sort of rings a bell.”

“Give it a second.”

“Ambassador Holt? Is that who I’m thinking of.”

“That’s her dad. I met him and his son during the whole Galra fiasco. Pidge looks just like her brother, and I knew they had a daughter who went into the culinary world.”

“Do you think Allura knows?”

“I don’t see how she couldn’t, honestly.”

Keith scowls even though Shiro can’t see. “This explains how she was able to figure out what happened to you so fast.”

“Yeah.”

“Does everyone have some sort of insane secret past around here?”

“I think just the three of us.”

“Thank god. I don’t want to have to go through this again. Well, not, uh, all of this. Just the secrets part.”

Shiro hums in response. Keith can hear his heartbeat starting to slow despite the intensity of the conversation. He must be exhausted, Keith thinks, letting all of that out after so long.

“We probably still have to talk in the morning,” he tells Shiro. All he gets in response is another hum, but that’s really all he needs.

;

Keith wakes early, early, to the sight of Shiro’s face and for a moment thinks he’s still dreaming. As he blinks the sleep from his eyes the night slots into place and Keith’s breath catches against the memory of Shiro’s tears on his neck. Now Shiro looks calm, with pillow creases peeking out on his cheek and the tightness in his face replaced with unfeigned slack. 

There’s no way Keith is leaving this bed today. He fishes for his phone, finds it under the bed, and pulls up his conversation with Pidge.

**hey kt, just a heads up 1. i’m taking a sick day today, 2. i want 2 see the spreadsheet tmrw**

**u fucker who told u**

**Shiro, met ur dad + bro when he was in outworlder trouble**

**so you made up then**

**could say that, yeah**

**im not sure how I feel about it if this is the result**

**thanks for ur support xoxo**

**yeah whatever see you tomorrow**

“Who’s that?” Shiro asks in a sleep-roughened voice.

“Pidge. I’m taking the day off.”

“Oh, good.” And before Keith can make some pointed suggestions about how to spend his day off, Shiro closes his eyes and falls back asleep immediately. Keith tries to follow suit but he’s never been a particularly good sleeper, so he just lies there with his eyes closed until it becomes too boring. He doesn’t want to get out of bed, so he settles for watching Shiro sleep. Eventually, though, he starts to feel creepy about that so he reverts to catatonically staring at the ceiling until finally he has to admit that lying in bed while Shiro is still out cold is not the best course of action. 

He gets up as stealthily as he can, updates Allura on the situation (in the vaguest possible of terms, which doesn’t stop her from responding with something extremely vulgar just to make him blush) and figures he might as well cook breakfast.

Normally, Keith is straightforward in his breakfast habits: eggs, bacon, toast. Not even fancy egg preparations, because he’s usually trying to get his day started as quickly as possible. Sometimes even just cereal or a piece of fruit or leftovers. And he knows that Shiro would be happy with any of that, and that he doesn’t need to impress him, as a cook or as a person, but he wants to. He wants to do something special. And if Pidge is right about his mystical ability to infuse food with his emotions, even better. 

Now, if only he knew what constituted a ‘special’ breakfast. He remembers talking to Hunk, years ago, about baking. Keith can bake (presumably one of the reasons Pidge recommended him for the show) but he prefers the rapid improvisation available in savory cooking. He likes reacting and moving quickly and responding to sudden changes in ways that can improve them. Waiting for dough to rise or to finish baking bores him. He doesn’t like memorizing ratios, doesn’t even have that much of a sweet tooth. But he does remember Hunk saying, “I don’t know, I think there’s something loving about baking for someone. It feels homey.”

At the time, Lance had been trying to woo one of the bartenders at their old haunt, and they were all arguing about the best way to impress someone via cooking. Lance and Keith had, tragically, agreed that a three-course, visually stunning, possible French-inspired dinner was the best move. Complete with sexy dessert, of course which is where they pressed Hunk for his opinions (and advice, and eventually just for his actual recipes). Hunk had been a good sport, but as the night went on he got more and more insistent that the ultimate move was baking for someone.

“Maybe,” Lance had said, “but like, once you’re together. That’s like ‘I love you, let’s get married and have a dozen babies’ level stuff. I’m talking about like ‘hey, I think you’re hot, let’s bang and also date.’”

“And you wonder why you’re still single?” Keith had asked him, but the exchange stuck in his head.

Keith does keep basic baking stuff around for the occasions when Hunk is over and they’re talking about recipe testing or Keith is just trying to subtly bully him into making fancy breads. He thinks about just doing that: baking bread, but that’s a little too rustic-domestic for his tastes this morning. Hunk did send them several recipes, though, so Keith flicks back through his emails until he finds something appropriate. 

It’s an arduous and time-consuming process, and if Keith didn’t know how long and deeply Shiro could sleep he wouldn’t even bother because the whole point of this is the surprise. The thought of Shiro catching him in the act: rolling out the dough, folding it over the butter (shaping the butter into a block first, which is somehow the most embarrassing part, the gentle, careful way he has to handle it), waiting for the butter to chill again. He paces while he waits, and hopes his steps are light enough not to disturb Shiro. Then he thinks about pastry fillings, and preps those, and finally the dough is done and he just has to let it chill one final time.

Hours have passed and Shiro is still sleeping soundly. He’s tossed and turned several times and a part of Keith is glad he’s already up and not experiencing the dubious joys of having Shiro knee him in various organs. 

In a rare instance of serendipity, Shiro blinks awake just as Keith is pulling the baking sheet from the oven. Shiro’s up in a flash, heading over the kitchen and wrapping an arm around Keith’s waist.

“You baked croissants for me?”

“Not exactly.”

Shiro takes a closer look and a deep inhale.

“You baked _pain au chocolate?_ ”

“There are some other fillings too, but yes.” Keith can’t even look up at Shiro. Previous experience tells him that Shiro will tip his chin up or duck down to peer up at him, but neither of those things happen.

Instead, Shiro has gone straight for the croissants and burned himself.

“Poor baby,” Keith coos through his laughter, as Shiro runs his hand under the faucet.

“How long do you think it will take for them to cool?”

“Ten minutes maybe?”

Shiro stares at him. A dopey smile spreads over his face. “You baked for me.”

“Shut up.”

“And you’re embarrassed about it!”

“I will kick you out.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Try me.”

“You won’t. You looooove me. You baked for me. Plus, I’ll make the coffee.”

“Now that’s a good reason.”

Shiro laughs and kisses him on the temple 

The coffee and the croissants are ready at roughly the same time. Shiro insists on eating off of plates and at the breakfast bar instead of in bed (“I don’t want to roll around in crumbs, thanks”). Keith doesn’t even pretend like he’s not watching Shiro take his first bite.

“What did you put in this?” Shiro asks, mouth still full.

“Uh, chocolate? Why?”

“It tastes...I can’t really explain it. It feels happy. Like, happier than food normally does.”

Keith fights down a blush. “Pidge has this theory that I can, like, put my emotions into my food. She has a spreadsheet about it and everything.” As soon as he’s done talking he turns to his plate and shoves half a croissant into his mouth.

They finish in silence, and then Shiro turns to him. There are still flakes of pastry clinging to the corner of his mouth, and a chocolate stain on the edge of his thumb. His eyes are bright.

“She was right,” Shiro says, and kisses him.

**COURSE 7**   
_basil-infused whipped cream_

_bittersweet chocolate_  
eggs  
butter  
sugar 

_rambutan  
orange juice_

_Beat eggs, sugar and salt together. Melt chocolate and butter double-boiler style on the stove. Then fold the chocolate into the eggs. Pour into springform and bake. Cook down rambutans with a splash of orange juice for sauce. Serve cake with basil whipped cream and rambutan sauce._

_**Several years later** _

“Kogane and Shirogane are a pedigreed pair of chefs—now that is a mouthful—both with tenures at Iverson’s Bushel and degrees from the French Culinary Institute. Kogane is also the winner of this past season of Top Chef, and has been Pidge Gunderson’s right hand at Bird in the Hand for the past nine years. 

Jesus, could they suck your dick any harder?

They agreed to sit down with us to talk about their new restaurant: Polaris.”

“Okay, you can stop there, you know. No one needs you to read this.”

“No, no,” Lance insists. “This is what the people want. Nay, this is what the people need.”

The rest of the room: the whole staff, and Allura and Coran, and Shiro’s friends from his Bushel and pre-Bushel days, and even Keith and Shiro’s new employees, break out in riotous agreement. Keith buries his head in his hands and lets out a long, mournful groan. Shiro rubs his back soothingly, but Keith knows that he’s enjoying this almost as much as Lance is.

“Do voices!” Pidge hollers. 

“You think I wasn’t already planning on doing them?”

Keith is going to die. He has this grand future sprawled out ahead of him, according to this article, and he’s going to die in Pidge’s fucking restaurant, with Lance doing a bad impersonation of him. And Shiro will be too busy laughing at the whole thing to mourn him appropriately. There has to be some way he can take everyone down with him. Fire, maybe. There are candles, because Lance insisted they needed to set the mood for this dramatic reading.

“Relax, babe,” Shiro whispers in his ear. “It won’t be that bad.”

Keith turns his face towards Shiro’s next and mutters, “It’ll be worse, actually.”

Lance sighs audibly. “Fine, fine. In deference to Keith’s unbelievable shyness, I will only read select passages. Chosen at my discretion.”

“Thanks?” Keith says. “I think?”

“Ungrateful.” 

While Lance combs through the interview to decide which parts he wants to perform, more bottles seem to magically appear on the tables. Keith doesn’t know where they keep coming from, but gift horses and all that. Plus, if he’s going to endure this he’s going to make sure he doesn’t remember it in the morning.

Shiro keeps pressing the length of their bodies together. It’s one of many (thankfully) constants in their relationship; whenever Shiro gets tipsy he’s even more affectionate than normal. He glues himself to Keith’s side, and Keith lets everyone believe it’s because Keith himself is more uncomfortable in social situations. Shiro confessed to him once, a year after they’d gotten back together, that he does it because Keith makes him feel safe. 

So Keith always leans into him, and tries to communicate telepathically that as long as he’s here, nothing will happen to Shiro. So far he’s been able to keep that promise. He hopes that even without the constant presence of their safety net—Pidge and Allura’s connections, Lance’s unwavering loyalty, Hunk’s boundless compassion—he can continue to keep it.

“Man,” Lance exclaims, “who did you guys bribe for publicity like this?”

“When you’re this good,” Keith says dryly, “you don’t need to bribe anyone.”

Lance pantomimes his outrage to the rest of the room, while Shiro snickers against Keith’s shoulder. 

“They didn’t bribe anyone!” Pidge calls out.

“I did!” Allura says, waving. She sends an exaggerated wink Keith’s way.

Lance clears his throat. Loudly.

“Asking about the menu inspiration prompts some hemming and hawing. Given Kogane’s time at Bird in the Hand it makes sense to expect a carefully curated menu designed not only to delight the senses but to create an emotional journey.

‘Well,’ Shirogane says, ‘there is definitely an inspiration for the menu. It’s designed to tell a story.’

He looks to Kogane, who has been much more reluctant to answer my questions, maybe for permission to continue. I can’t tell what passes between them, but something is communicated in that moment, and Shirogane continues. 

‘It’s a bit embarrassing, honestly,’ he says, giving me a blinding smile that wards off any irritation all the hedging might have caused.

(Blinding smile, Lance crows. She talks about how handsome he is like every other paragraph. Keith, you better watch out.)

‘Since this is our restaurant,’ Shirogane continues, and Kogane blushes at the weight on the word our, ‘the menu is meant to reflect the progress of our relationship.’

It’s an incredibly endearing answer, and one I’m not entirely surprised to hear. The duo’s relationship is no secret in the industry, or even to followers of celebrity chef news.

‘So you’re in the dessert phase now?’

‘That’s a little too straightforward,’ Kogane tells me. He hasn’t spoken much during our conversation, but everything has been in this tone. Clipped but not rude.

(Shiro and Allura let out matching sighs of despair at that line. Lance just laughs.)

‘It goes through a specific part of our relationship,’ he continues. ‘So that, uh, arc, if you will, ended in dessert. But I like to think that in real life, we’re still somewhere in the middle.’

‘One of the meat courses,’ Shirogane adds. ‘Red meat.’

‘Not as delicate as fish,’ Kogane agrees, ‘but still treated carefully. Something worth savoring. That’s what we want to convey.’

‘It’s about love,’ Shirogane says. ‘That’s the point of it.’”

Lance continues reading, but whatever he’s saying (Keith doesn’t know, since he’s decided never to read the article and has already forced himself to forget most of what he said) is drowned about by a chorus of Awws from the room.

Keith, bright red, tries to crawl under the table, but Shiro hauls him back up.

“No running away,” he whispers.

Beside them, Allura rises to her feet. She pulls Keith up with her, or tries to, but Keith focuses on making himself as dead a weight as possible, and despite Allura’s strength, she gives up.

“Fine, be that way,” she says to him. Then she turns to the rest of the room and addresses them: “At the risk of embarrassing Keith so much he actually bursts into flames, I’d like to add a little something.”

“Speech! Speech” Hunk chants. The rest of the room takes it up as well.

“Oh no, nothing so dramatic,” Allura says. She looks like a princess, Keith realizes. Of course she does, but sometimes it hits him all at once, a wave of awe and fondness.

“I just wanted to say, in front of all of you, how grateful I am to have been a part of this family for so long, and how happy I am to see new faces in this room.”

Further in the back are Keith and Shiro’s new team, all drunk and all confused as to why their first professional obligations is to attend a party.

“I don’t have much more to say than that,” she admits. “I’m so happy, and so proud of Keith and Shiro, and so glad that you’ve all come here tonight to celebrate them.”

She sits down to enthusiastic, boozy applause, and when she does Keith sees tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

He grabs her hand on impulse. “We are a family,” he tells her.

“I know. I’m just going to miss seeing the two of you every day.”

“You’ll just have to come by the new place all the time,” Shiro butts in.

“Oh, I will, and when you least expect me.”

“I can’t wait,” Keith tells her, fighting against the smile that’s spreading across his face.

The keep their pinkies linked while others, inspired by Allura’s proclamation, make an increasingly hilarious and incomprehensible series of speeches. On Keith’s other side Shiro is tracing tight spirals on Keith’s thigh and leaning his head on Keith’s shoulder. Keith feels suffused with warmth. Maybe this is the dessert of his life; he wouldn’t mind if it were, even if he hopes this is only the beginning of something new.

“What are you thinking about?” Shiro mumbles. Keith tucks his hand under Shiro’s shirt and curls it around his hip. He can feel Shiro’s smile against his neck, and Shiro’s skin is hot against his cold palm. Everything where it ought to be.

“Our next menu.”

**Author's Note:**

> Recipe Sources!
> 
> courses 1, 5, 6 and 7 are from my own head  
> course 2 is adapted from http://www.lomejordelagastronomia.com/en/dishes/oysters-spicy-coconut-squid-ink-and-lime-0  
> course 3 is based on Doug's dish from Top Chef s12e9  
> course 4 is based on Sheldon's dish from Top Chef s14e9


End file.
